Choosing Priorities
by Tiffany Park
Summary: Young Fai adjusts to life in Seresu, and Ashura wrestles with the consequences of his recent actions and decisions. Sequel to "Embracing Destiny."
1. Chapter 1: Headers and Disclaimers

This story is part of a still-untitled series. For those interested, the stories should be read in the following order: "Embracing Destiny," "Choosing Priorities," "Cooking Magic," "Like Sunshine."

* * *

TITLE: Choosing Priorities

AUTHOR: Tiffany Park

CATEGORY: Dark Fantasy, Angst, Drama, Prequel, Probably AU, Sequel to "Embracing Destiny"

SERIES: The series is still untitled. The stories should be read in the following order: "Embracing Destiny," "Choosing Priorities," "Cooking Magic," "Like Sunshine."

SPOILERS: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Chapitres 150 through 172. References to xxxHolic.

RATING: PG-13

CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild language, violent imagery (but nothing worse than what is already in the manga).

SUMMARY: Fai adjusts to life in Seresu, and Ashura wrestles with the consequences of his recent actions and decisions.

STATUS: In Work

ARCHIVE: Please ask first

DISCLAIMER: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic, and their characters (King Ashura, Fai D Fluorite/Yūi, Original-Fai, Fei Wang Reed, and Yūko Ichihara) belong to CLAMP, Del Rey Ballantine Books, Random House Inc., Kodansha Ltd., Funimation, and probably a whole bunch of other people and companies I know nothing about. RG Veda and its characters (Lady Kendappa, Lord Taishaku(ten), and Lord Bishamon(ten)) belong to CLAMP, TOKYOPOP Inc., Shinshokan Publishing Co., Ltd., and probably more people and companies that, again, I know nothing about. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story is a direct sequel of "Embracing Destiny," and references or continues a number of elements from it. I don't think you need to read it to understand this story, but some things will be clearer if you skim over the last five or six chapters of it.

Like "Embracing Destiny," this story plays heavily with the revelation by Princess Tomoyo that King Ashura was a dreamseer, although as usual he's nowhere near as good at dealing with it as characters like Tomoyo and Yūko.

I stuck with English and tried not to use any Japanese titles, honorifics, or terminology because, quite frankly, I don't trust myself to get them correct in context. I kept "hitsuzen" rather than using "inevitability" (which may have been a mistake), but that's pretty much it.

If any of this is going to bother you, you'd probably be better off just skipping this story.

Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2:  Part I:  Arrival

**Choosing Priorities**

**By**

**Tiffany Park**

**Part I: Arrival**

"Shall we go?" Ashura said, mustering up a tiny half smile in an attempt to reassure his new charge. He was feeling none too steady, himself. He held out his hand. "This isn't the only world in existence."

The boy visibly shook, he was so afraid. But then something in him changed. Ashura saw courage lighting his eyes, firming his small form with resolve. It gave Ashura hope that the child had a chance to heal, that he was salvageable, that he could someday have a real life.

At least one of them could have a future.

The boy reached out, still trembling, and took Ashura's hand.

"What is your name?" Ashura asked gently.

The child hesitated a moment, then said, "Fai."


	3. Chapter 3

Ashura brought them all back to the castle shrine. Himself, Fai, and Fai's dead brother, whom Fai wouldn't consider abandoning. Ashura had seen no reason not to bring the body along; Fai deserved to hold whatever funeral rites he desired, after all.

Then Ashura had been required to transport all three of them and had gotten a nasty surprise.

It had been a very long time since he'd physically crossed between worlds, not since he'd become King of Seresu, and he was dreadfully out of practice. Even back then, he had only once ever transported another person, when he'd taken his cousin Kendappa on a short jaunt to a lovely place full of wildflowers and butterflies. That had taught him exactly how much power was required to take another person world-walking, the hard way.

He'd forgotten that long-ago lesson. Carrying two other people across worlds, even if one no longer lived, almost proved too much for him. He managed to stand firm, barely, as they materialized next to the sacred pool.

As Fai looked around, he gripped Ashura's hand tighter and hugged the body of his twin closer to himself. "Where are we, King Ashura?" he asked timorously.

"This is the shrine beneath my home, Luval Castle," Ashura replied, keeping his voice steady despite his utter weariness.

"It's full of magic," Fai breathed. His eyes were very wide, their size magnified by his hollowed face.

"Yes, it is. It contains the greatest concentration of natural magic in the kingdom."

Ashura had opted to return to the shrine for two reasons. The first was that he assumed the entire castle, and especially his own chambers, would be stuffed full of upset people. He had taken his leave of Seresu rather precipitously and not under the best of circumstances. Probably everyone in the castle now believed the worst, that he had run off to die.

Of course, the worst had been his intention at the time, but the Witch of Dimensions had altered that plan neatly.

The second reason he had chosen the shrine was for the sheer amount of raw, ambient magic it held. He hoped it had masked the inevitable burst of power that his return had generated. He needed a little time with his new charge before he faced his court, and worse, his cousin and his chief councilor.

Kendappa and Vainamoinen would not be pleased with him.

"This is all yours?" Fai asked, looking around at the graceful arches and columns, then gazing with awe at the preternaturally blue water of the sacred pool.

"In a sense, although it might be more accurate to say that I belong to the shrine," Ashura said. "When I became king, I was consecrated to the care of this place." He felt a frisson of surprise as he spoke. It was another of those ceremonial duties that he'd never given much thought before, but with his new knowledge about the truth of his ancient ancestors, this obligation suddenly took on a real significance to him.

"I like it here," said Fai. "It feels nice."

"I like it here, too." Ashura took a quick sense of what was happening in the castle, and inhaled sharply. The magic of his world-walking had not gone unnoticed for as long as he had hoped it might. "Enjoy the quiet while it lasts," he said with resignation, patting Fai's hand. "They know I'm back."

"Who?"

"Just about everyone." Ashura sighed.

"What do you mean?" Fai looked nervous.

"I left rather abruptly, I'm afraid," Ashura admitted. "There are going to be a great many unhappy people arriving soon. Wait here." He let go of Fai's hand and walked over to the entrance. He stood before the immense double doors and made a gesture with one arm. It took too much effort due to his depleted condition, but a magical barricade haltingly formed. He hoped it would keep unwanted guests out for a while, or at least discourage them.

He returned to Fai and knelt down before him, directing a pointed look at the body the child still held. "Fai? What would you like to do about your brother?" he asked gently.

Fai hugged his twin closer. "I— I don't want to—" he stammered.

"Fai, something must be done for him. I know this is very hard, but a decision should be made before anyone else comes here. Otherwise, they'll just want to follow Seresu's customs." Once his courtiers arrived, he and Fai would be swept away in chaos and the demands of duty. They might even be separated for a time. He knew Fai would be treated kindly; Kendappa would understand and take care of everything, he was certain. As for himself, he would probably be watched very closely for the foreseeable future.

It was better to deal with this now, so they could stand firm on the decision later. "Do you have any preferred funeral rites?" He made sure to keep his voice soft. "Here, cremation and interment of the remains is the norm, but it might be different where you are from."

"No!" Fai looked horrified. "No, don't burn him. Please, don't do that. Don't burn Fa—him."

"Shhh, it's all right. We don't have to cremate him. We'll do whatever you want." Ashura only tried to calm the boy, and didn't remark on Fai's slip. He already knew Fai had taken on his brother's name. In his dream of the pit, Ashura had seen this child on the ground calling for Fai, and the twin in the tower calling for Yūi. The dead twin had fallen from a great height, and so obviously was the first Fai. As this child, the living child, was Yūi.

In the end, it didn't matter. The living twin was Fai now, and Ashura would honor his child's choice.

"Really?" Fai gasped.

"Really."

"Can we..." Fai faltered, then blurted out, "Can we preserve him?"

"Preserve him?" Ashura blinked, surprised by that request. It was something that was occasionally done when a body needed to be displayed, as for the funeral of an important state or religious figure, but it wasn't common.

"I... I don't want him to... I don't want him to rot away..." Fai sniffled. "I want... I was told it was possible to..."

Fai wasn't making much sense, but Ashura didn't see any harm in the short term. "Of course we can."

"For how long?"

"Magic doesn't last forever, Fai, but it can be refreshed. We can keep him exactly as he is, right now, for many months. Perhaps even as long as several years, if we are diligent."

"That's okay, I don't think I'll need... Can we do it now?"

Again, Ashura was startled. He didn't understand the need for urgency, but the expression on Fai's face was intent. "All right. We can repair his injuries later, if that's all right?" The dead child's body had been severely damaged by the fall, with torn tissue, broken bones, and part of his head crushed and caved in. Ashura unwillingly recalled the large, bloodstained spot where the body had obviously landed. He doubted Fai wanted his brother preserved for very long in that condition.

"You can do that?" Fai looked hopeful.

Cosmetic repairs on a dead body were not difficult. The living required far more effort and skill, and positive results were not guaranteed. "Yes, I can," Ashura confirmed. "So can the healing mages. But it will take time. Right now, I'll just preserve him as he is."

Fai arranged his brother on the floor. Still on his knees, Ashura marshaled his magic. Fortunately, he had begun to recover from his world-walking efforts, and he believed he could accomplish a simple preservation spell. Aware that they wouldn't be alone for too much longer, he muttered, "This will have to be quick."

Fai glanced at him fearfully. Ashura swiftly pushed magic into a small circle of spell-runes and directed them into the dead twin's body. Fai's brother glowed soft blue for a moment, then the light faded and he looked as he had before.

Ashura inhaled deeply and closed his eyes against a sudden headache. That simple spell had taken too much out of him, despite his brief optimism.

Fai asked, "Is it— Is he—?"

"It's done," Ashura confirmed, his eyes still closed. "The stasis should last for a few days. We can do a better job later." Perhaps by then, Fai would be more willing to let his brother go.

"Oh, good," Fai breathed. He couldn't take his eyes off his twin.

Ashura risked another probe outside the shrine's doors, and detected Lord Suhail on the stairs, leading a large group down. The chief of the court wizards immediately answered with a probe of his own. That was the problem with actively searching for a mage with magic; it announced the searcher's intent to the magician being sought. Magic called to magic.

Fortunately, that peculiarity was an advantage just now. Ashura sent a quick message that he didn't want to deal with a crowd and would allow only a limited number of people to enter the shrine. He still hadn't recovered and didn't believe he could back up his order, but Suhail didn't know that.

Fai had been alone in that horrible pit of death for a very long time, surrounded by corpses and with only his brother at the top of the tower for companionship. Ashura feared the child might be overwhelmed if too many people arrived at once.

"Fai, prepare yourself," he said, gracelessly heaving himself to his feet. "We will shortly have company."

Fai suddenly looked frightened. "King Ashura, I have to tell you something first. They might not... They might not want me to stay here..."

"Why ever not?"

Fai lowered his head. "It's because I've been cursed."

"You mean the ill fortune you shared with your brother? I already know about that."

Fai jerked his head up in surprise and stared at Ashura. "You know?"

Ashura nodded. "Yes. Don't concern yourself."

"Oh," Fai said weakly. "Well, it's supposed to be gone, now that F— My brother is..." He sadly looked down at the body beside him. "It should be gone now."

"It's all right, Fai."

"No, no, it's not. There's another curse on me," Fai said in a rush. "It'll make me kill someone who has more magic power than me." He looked like he wanted to cry. "It might not be safe for me to stay here."

Ashura already knew about that curse. It was irrelevant because no one in Seresu even came close to Fai's power. Ashura was more concerned about the second curse, and thought it interesting that Fai didn't seem to know about that one. Given his other painful confessions, Fai undoubtedly would have admitted to it had he been aware of it.

"Don't worry, Fai. I have it on good authority that I am the most powerful magician in Seresu," Ashura told him, remembering an irritating conversation with his chief wizard. He also had the Witch's assurance of Fai's power, but he wasn't going to mention her if he could avoid it. He smiled and added, "Or I was, until you arrived. I haven't triggered your curse, have I?"

Fai shook his head.

"Then no one else in the country will, either," Ashura stated confidently.

"But what if people mind—? They might not like it—"

"It can't harm them, so they needn't know about it. It can be our secret." Ashura didn't think anyone else would be able to sense the curses. The dark sorcerer had done his work well, and disguised them most effectively. The only reason Ashura could detect them was because he was already familiar with the polluted flavor of that sorcerer's power.

Ashura tilted his head, feeling a startling number of magical probes suddenly searching him out. Had every magician in the entire castle come to the shrine? He cursed Suhail for ignoring his wishes.

He took Fai's hand, saying, "We can finish talking later. Now hush. They're almost here. I have to let them in." Otherwise, they'd probably shatter his barrier and break down the doors. There were more than enough of them to batter through any defenses he could presently maintain.

With that unpleasant realization, he dissolved his barricade over the shrine's entrance.


	4. Chapter 4

Almost immediately, the doors slammed open, and the raised voices of what could only be a large crowd filled the previously quiet space with unintelligible cacophony.

Ashura winced. This was going to be worse than he had thought.

Fai gripped his hand so hard it hurt. "They sound mad. Are they mad at me?"

"No," Ashura told him. "They're mad at me."

"But you're the king."

"Yes. That's one reason why they're all so mad at me," Ashura said ruefully. He noticed that the crowd had quieted and, surprisingly, remained outside the shrine.

"Don't delude yourself that it's the only reason, cousin," came a familiar, female voice. Alone, Kendappa walked purposefully toward him and Fai.

"I assume you're responsible for the fact that we aren't inundated with agitated courtiers and servants, Kendappa?" Ashura said to her.

"A rather ungracious way of saying 'thank you,' but I've come to expect no better of you," Kendappa retorted, stopping in front of him. She sketched a quick, half-hearted curtsey. Its brevity proclaimed that it was just for form. "I'm gratified to see you looking so well. It's unexpected, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless."

"Thank you," he said. He kept his expression as placid as always, even as the magnitude of what he was doing finally sank in. He'd been so caught up in the moment, swept away by his unruly emotions, his utter weariness, and his concern for Fai, that he had forgotten what Fai's presence in Seresu actually meant. His cousin's usual sharp banter now forced him to acknowledge the enormity of what he had done, and he felt as though a great chasm might open beneath his feet at any moment.

He rather wished one would.

Kendappa's eyes flicked down to Fai and returned to Ashura's with a question in them. "I should ask where you've been, but I won't just yet. I see you've brought a guest."

Ashura maintained rigid control over himself. The Witch of Dimensions had promised him seventeen years before his death. Surely he could manage to come up with an alternate solution to Fai's curses, and his own, in that time. His life was forfeit, no matter what else occurred; there was no getting around that implacable fact. His own curse, the contract he had made with the Witch of Dimensions, and Fai's second curse all demanded his death. But maybe everyone else could be spared. And if not, well, there still might be a way to at least limit the damage.

Somewhat more steadied, he made the introductions calmly. "Lady Kendappa, this is Lord Fai of the Royal House of Valeria. He'll be staying here permanently, as my ward." He emphasized Fai's title, family lineage, and new station and status, watching his cousin's eyes narrow as she digested the information. He could tell that she had a great many questions, but she stayed silent. No doubt she would interrogate him later.

No matter how awful and bedraggled he looked, Fai was the scion of a royal house, and the sooner everyone got that fact through their heads, the better. Fai had started a little at Ashura's emphasis on his rank, but the child didn't say anything. Ashura continued, "Lord Fai, this is my cousin, Lady Kendappa. She manages the royal household, which makes her the most important person in the entire castle." Fai only stared up at him, wide-eyed.

Kendappa gave a delicate snort at Ashura's statement. Then her discerning gaze took in the body lying a short distance away, and immediately flew back to Fai. She looked at Ashura, aghast. "Twins," she whispered. "Oh, Ashura..."

"It's not what you're thinking, Kendappa."

"I'm certain it is," she countered.

"Does it matter?" Ashura asked her.

Kendappa took a deep breath, visibly getting a rein on her reactions. "No," she finally said, and gave him a shaky smile. "It doesn't matter. Not when the end result is so fortunate."

How wrong she was. It would have been far, far better for her and for Seresu if he'd succeeded in his original aim this morning. But at the same time he didn't regret anything he'd done since, and was actually grateful to the Witch and pleased with how things had turned out. How perverse was that? The terrible dichotomy almost broke him down, but once again he got himself under control.

Seventeen years... He had seventeen years to work something out.

Vainamoinen's voice called out from the doorway, "Lady Kendappa? Is everything all right?"

Kendappa called back, "Everything is fine." To Ashura she said, "We'll have to talk later. Vainamoinen and the others are getting impatient. You've been gone all day, you know."

"All day? What time is it?"

"It's well into eventide," she replied, giving him a strange look. "Don't you even know how long you've been away?"

His journey had taken that long? It had barely seemed like an hour or two to Ashura. Of course, time often flowed differently in other worlds, and those two worlds in particular had significant temporal uncertainties. There had been no way to tell for sure how long he had been in the Witch of Dimensions' timeless domain, but he hadn't thought he'd stayed very long in Fai's world, either.

"Cousin?" Kendappa said, lightly touching his arm.

Shaking off his abstraction, Ashura glanced back to the door and asked a question more pertinent to him at this present moment. "Just how many people are waiting outside? I asked Suhail to limit the numbers."

"Surely you jest. That mob out there is as limited as we could manage." She gave him an arch look. "Your wishes aren't exactly paramount with anyone right now." The expression on her face said quite clearly that her own sympathies lay with the crowd.

"Tell me, are all the court wizards with them?"

"Yes. Your behavior this morning was quite alarming," she said pointedly.

"Ah." Yes, it certainly had been. He hadn't missed the warning her words conveyed. It wasn't every day that the king tried to commit suicide. But as long as Fai stayed in Seresu, that door was closed to him, lest the second curse be activated. "My behavior will no longer be alarming in that particular way."

"I should certainly hope not, considering your new responsibilities." She looked again at Fai. "You must allow at least some of your court to see you. How do you want to handle this, cousin?"

Ashura felt the small body next to him tremble. He squeezed Fai's hand lightly in encouragement. "Keep the numbers small. Let in Vainamoinen and Suhail, maybe a few others who might feel slighted otherwise. Keep everyone else out, especially the guards."

"That won't make anyone very happy."

"I don't care."

"No, I'm sure you don't. Just don't be surprised if they don't take it well. This is all your own fault, you know. You have no one to blame but yourself." With that unsympathetic comment, she headed back to the shrine's entrance.

That was certainly a true statement, Ashura reflected.

He looked down at Fai, and felt different priorities overtake his thinking. Amazing, how when he focused on Fai all other concerns faded to insignificance. He would have to be careful of that. He asked, "Will you be all right in a crowd? I fear that my idea of a small group and theirs may differ somewhat."

Fai's face became very pale.

Ashura took that as a no. "They won't hurt you, Fai," he said. "But they might be rather...excitable."

Bravely, Fai said, "I'll be fine."

"Hmm." Ashura hoped Fai would be. He would just have to trust to Kendappa's ability to explain the situation to Vainamoinen, and that the chief councilor would understand.

Fortunately, it appeared that his trust in his two closest advisors was not misplaced. Either that, or maybe they were just afraid he'd disappear again if they pushed too hard. Whatever the reason, only a small group of six approached: Kendappa and Vainamoinen, along with Suhail and three other court wizards, Lord Ashant D Sharma, Lord Syed D Greenstone, and Lady Nilima D Tyagi. They were the only four wizards in Seresu who currently bore the D title, and all carried their staves of power to this meeting.

Ashura narrowed his eyes at the undisguised warning to him. So much for the idea that they wouldn't want to push him.

Clearly, they were taking no chances with his mood and were prepared to subdue him if necessary. In his depleted state he stood no chance against the four strongest of his wizards. Not that he intended to fight them or run away again, but they didn't know that. This was definitely worse than he had thought it would be. On a more positive note, their calm demeanor indicated a willingness to talk first.

Fai, on the other hand, was staring at them in fascination. "Are they all magicians?" he breathed.

Ashura said tightly, "The four carrying staves are court wizards. Lady Kendappa is also a magician, although not of the same level. The gentleman without a staff is not a magician. He is the leader of my Council of Nobles."

Fai looked at him, alarmed at his tone. "Is something wrong?"

Ashura didn't reply. He locked his gaze onto Kendappa's. She gave an infinitesimal shrug as if to say, "I tried to warn you."

The group stopped before him. The men bowed; the two women curtseyed. Ashura acknowledged them with a simple, "My lords and ladies," and waited for them to make the next move.

Sensing the tension, Fai moved in closer, pressing against Ashura's legs. To shelter him, Ashura let go of Fai's hand and draped his cloak around the boy, then placed an arm around his shoulder. He murmured, "It's all right, Fai," regretting that his actions had provoked such a confrontation. In hindsight, though, he knew he should have expected it.

Vainamoinen raised his brows at the protective gestures. For a few seconds he stared at Fai in perplexity. Ashura couldn't blame him. Kendappa would have apprised everyone about the current situation, and if ever there was a child who looked unlike a prince, it was poor Fai.

Vainamoinen glanced at the body that lay a little ways off, then at Ashura. He didn't look happy, but he didn't look unhappy, either. Just a little befuddled, as though presented with a situation he hadn't expected and didn't know how to deal with. That reaction didn't last long; his expression lightened and he appeared to come to a decision. He stepped forward. "Your Majesty," he said, "Lady Kendappa has informed us of your new ward. She suggested that your recent behavior is related to this new addition to court." His whole mien invited elaboration and conciliation.

Nodding his gratitude, Ashura took the proffered opening. "Indeed, my lord. This is Lord Fai of the Royal House of Valeria. Lord Fai, I present to you Lord Vainamoinen, the Lord of Seresu's Council of Nobles." He squeezed Fai's shoulder gently.

Hesitantly, Fai said, "My greetings, Lord Vainamoinen."

Ashura smiled at him and said in a stage whisper, "That's right, Fai. Don't let them intimidate you."

Vainamoinen grimaced at that comment. He bowed his head and said with an honest smile to Fai, "My lord, it is a very great pleasure to meet you. I believe you may be just what we need around here."

Then he came closer and spoke very softly, for Ashura's ears only. "Majesty, at this time I am willing to accept that this child is the reason for your flight this morning, but I do not understand what he could possibly have had to do with your visits to the armory and the apothecaries' workshop. However, that is undoubtedly a complex matter and I will let it pass for now. We will speak of it when the child is not present. Soon." he added implacably.

Ashura silently inclined his head, using his most regal and inscrutable manner.

Vainamoinen's only expression of displeasure was a slight twitch of his lips. He kept his peace and stepped back.

The rest of the introductions went quickly. Fai seemed a bit overwhelmed, even with such a small group present. Ashura noticed Suhail staring at the boy with a speculative light in his eyes, and frowned. He didn't like that look. He remembered it from his own childhood; Suhail had directed it at him often enough. It indicated that Suhail was bothered or puzzled by something and trying to decide how to handle the issue without giving offense.

Deciding to drag things into the open, Ashura said, "Lord Suhail? Is there a problem?"

Suhail jerked, and his eyes flew to Ashura's. "Your Majesty, this boy's power... It's very...great..." His voice trailed off. He sounded both uncertain and fascinated.

Ah, the problem seemed benign enough. Fai's power was startling, to say the least. "Yes, I'm aware of it. We'll begin a training program for him after he settles in," Ashura stated flatly, unwilling to tolerate any argument on this subject.

Suhail looked curiously intrigued. He bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty. I believe that would be wise."

Vainamoinen said, "Now, Majesty, the council and court wizards would meet with you. The others are waiting outside. I believe you know the topic of which we will speak. It is not suitable for open discussion." His eyes flicked meaningfully to Fai.

Kendappa said quickly, "I can take Lord Fai while you talk. The maids and I will clean him up, and get him something to eat. He'll be perfectly fine, cousin."

"I see you two have already worked it out," Ashura said. Clearly, it was time to deal with the repercussions of his recent, abnormal behavior. His actions this morning had driven his council too far. It was as he had feared, and expected. He wasn't sure what they intended to demand of him, but at the very least he expected to be supervised for a while. He would tolerate it, if it reassured everyone. "Before we begin, I have some requests of my own."

"Cousin..."

Ashura held up a hand to stop her. "First, Fai is now under the protection of the House of Vanir. Make certain that he is treated and attired according to his station."

"It will take some time to have suitable clothing prepared," Kendappa said. "There is nothing new for a royal child available."

"There is plenty in storage. You may make use of mine, or my brother's. Whichever fits him better."

Kendappa blinked, startled. "Very well, cousin."

"Second..." Ashura inhaled, then glanced back at the silent little corpse. "I have placed a stasis spell on Fai's brother. Please have the healing mages repair his...his injuries. Have him cleaned and properly attired as well. Valeria's funeral customs are different than ours, and we will respect that. The body is to remain here, in the shrine. It will not be cremated, but instead preserved. Is that understood?"

"Of course, Your Majesty," Kendappa said softly.

Ashura looked down at Fai. The boy had gone rigid. Ashura couldn't tell if he was frightened by what was happening, or if the discussion about the disposition of his brother's body had distressed him. Either way, the poor child was likely to get even more upset as matters progressed. "Fai, please go with my cousin. She'll take care of you."

"Come along, Lord Fai." Kendappa took Fai's hand and pulled him gently. Fai walked several steps with her, but kept his head swiveled back so he could watch Ashura. His emaciated face was frozen with fear.

"King Ashura?" he said tremulously. "When will I see you again?"

Ashura honestly didn't know. It might be hours before he, his councilors, and his wizards came to terms and agreed to an arrangement that suited them all. "Later, Fai. Just go with Kendappa. It will be all right."

Fai tugged against Kendappa's hand, resisting going with her.

Gripping his staff nervously, Suhail said, "Lord Vainamoinen, this is not a good idea."

"What do you mean?" Vainamoinen asked.

"That child... He is clearly distraught. And there are other factors at work here that you know nothing about. We should not separate them."

"This is not a conversation the child should hear—" Vainamoinen began. He cut off abruptly.

The entire shrine had begun to shake.


	5. Chapter 5

Yūi tugged against Lady Kendappa's hand. He didn't want to go, and he didn't know why he had to go. All he knew was that he was being taken away from the only two people in the world that he wanted to stay with.

He still couldn't bear to be parted from Fai, even though his brother was dead. He feared these people wouldn't respect his wishes, would burn Fai's body to ashes when no one was around to stop them. Then he would never have a chance to revive Fai.

King Ashura had told them not to cremate Fai, but Yūi worried that they wouldn't obey. The king seemed resigned to whatever they wanted, and very unhappy—Yūi could feel it through King Ashura's magic.

But he was the king! No one had ever argued with the rulers in Valeria; they could do whatever they liked. Yet here things seemed different. King Ashura had said these people were mad at him, and was concerned about what would happen next. Yūi could tell that the king's magic had been drained during their journey across worlds. King Ashura couldn't stand against all these wizards if they threatened him.

Yūi didn't understand anything. He didn't understand why he was being taken away, he didn't understand why these people were angry, and he didn't understand why King Ashura was just letting it all happen.

Yūi was afraid. What if something happened to King Ashura? What would become of him then? Of Fai? King Ashura had said that Lady Kendappa would take care of him, but what if she didn't? She had been so sharp with the king earlier, and he had just accepted it. What if she was like all these other people, and willing to ignore the king's wishes?

It would be just like Valeria. Yūi would be imprisoned again, lost to life and comfort and warmth forever. Only this time, this time, he would be all alone, and Fai would be gone forever and ever.

Growing frantic, he tugged harder against Lady Kendappa's hand, barely aware of his surroundings. She held onto him and said something, but he didn't hear. He saw only the pit and the tower, heard only his brother's faint cries and a howling, frozen wind.

Not again. Never again. He couldn't let that happen again. He couldn't! He wouldn't!

He felt a connection with the glowing magic in the shrine and clung to it, pouring all his fear out into the mystical currents that swirled about him. The shrine shuddered, the harsh tremors matching Yūi's horror and his terror.

"King Ashura!" he cried out in tears. "Don't make me leave! I don't want to go!" He dragged against Lady Kendappa's pull and reached out desperately to the king. "Please, please, don't let them take me away! Don't let them take me again!"

Vaguely, he heard people shouting. What were they yelling about? He didn't care. Lady Kendappa had stopped, her grip suddenly slackened, and he yanked his hand free. He ran back toward the king.

"Fai, stop this!" King Ashura ordered sharply.

Yūi froze and stared at him. It was the first time the king had raised his voice to Yūi, and it felt like a slap in the face. Would King Ashura now also turn against him, like all his relatives had in Valeria? Was he forever doomed? Would everyone always despise him and punish him?

Yūi started to cry.

King Ashura broke away from his councilors and wizards. He strode toward Yūi. Yūi wondered if the king meant to kill him and sobbed harder. The brief hope King Ashura had offered was just a cruel illusion; nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change.

Yūi wanted the king to kill him. He deserved to die; he and Fai had destroyed Valeria, had killed all those people just by living. Everyone had said so; it must be true. And he was a killer; he had killed Fai as surely as if he'd stuck a knife in him. He wanted to die. Death would be kinder than life, and he would be with Fai again.

With a crack of thunder, the shrine gave a great heave, and King Ashura fell sprawled before Yūi. He pulled himself to his knees. "Fai," he said, and gripped Yūi's shoulders. "Fai, calm down. You must calm down."

Yūi cried so hard he shook, and the whole shrine quaked with matching violence.

He suddenly felt himself enfolded in a warm embrace. "Fai, Fai, calm down," King Ashura said again, softly, so very softly. Yūi trembled. The king said, "Fai, there's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing bad is going to happen. You can calm down. Please, Fai. Please calm down."

Why was the king holding him? Wasn't the king going to kill him? "I—I d-d-don't understand—" Yūi stammered.

"Fai, do you feel the shaking all around us?"

Helplessly, Yūi nodded into the king's shoulder.

"That's your doing. Your magic is interacting with the shrine's. It's triggered by your emotions."

"I'm so scared—" Yūi whispered.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, I promise."

"They want to send me away again— I don't want to go back to that place—"

Yūi felt the hug tighten. "No one will send you back to that place. You'll never go back to that place," King Ashura said so fiercely that Yūi couldn't help but believe him. "I won't allow it."

Yūi sniffled. The shrine's shaking diminished, becoming an odd, arrhythmic trembling. "But you seemed so worried—was it what they were going to do to you? What were they going to do to you?"

Gentle humor warmed King Ashura's voice. "No one likes to be scolded, not even me, and that's all they planned to do. They only wanted you to leave so you wouldn't be upset. Obviously, that didn't work out quite as well as they would have liked."

Yūi looked up and said timorously, "Really?"

"Really. Now please, Fai, calm yourself. You said you liked the shrine, didn't you?"

"Yes..."

"Fai, if this shaking keeps up, the shrine will be damaged..." The king stroked Yūi's hair gently.

Yūi pressed his face against King Ashura's chest. "How do I stop it?" he asked, his voice muffled by the king's velvet garments.

"Just by calming down." The king petted Yūi's hair again. "That's all."

"I can't, I don't want to leave—"

"You don't have to leave. We can both stay right here. Everyone else will leave, all right?" King Ashura made a gesture, then turned Yūi around so he could see the shrine. "You see?" the king said, keeping his hands on Yūi's shoulders. "They're all going away now."

Yūi saw that King Ashura spoke the truth. All the strange new people were walking quickly toward the door. Several of them cast nervous glances back toward Yūi and the king, but they kept moving and went out of the shrine.

So they did obey the king. Yūi hadn't been sure if they would—they hadn't before—but they really were leaving. He felt some of his panic recede, and with it, the shrine's trembles lessened to faint vibrations.

King Ashura said, "That's it, Fai. Everything's all right. Just relax."

The king made another gesture, and the shrine's doors closed. Once more, it was just the two of them, just Yūi and King Ashura. Or three, if Yūi counted Fai.

But Fai was dead.


	6. Chapter 6

Ashura closed his eyes and let out a long, relieved exhalation as he felt Fai calm and the last of the vibrations fade away to nothing. As Fai's emotions settled, Ashura sensed the raging maelstrom of the shrine's magic also gentle, first to light breezes, then back to the usual drifting clouds of free-floating energy. He managed to calm himself, as well. Poor Fai didn't know how close to utter ruin they had all been.

The shrine's immense, ambient magic kept the mountain floating. Somehow—Ashura wasn't quite sure how—Fai had connected to it. Had Fai's hysterics continued, not only the shrine would have been damaged, but everything—shrine, mountain, castle, all of it—everything would have come crashing down out of the sky.

Ashura had never before believed such a thing possible. The shrine's magic was as solid and stable as bedrock. More so, in fact, because an earthquake could split the rock and twist it all askew, but nothing affected the shrine's magic. It was so stable that one could put a castle full of magicians on top of it and its magic would never even twitch out of its usual patterns. In fact, all those magicians could hold a full-blown magical battle inside the shrine and not once threaten the mountain's stability.

Yet Fai, in his hysteria, had managed to grab hold of that magic and warp it all out of shape.

Ashura wondered who else realized the truth. Suhail, for a certainty. Likely the three wizards who had accompanied him. They were the four most skilled and powerful, and surely would have sensed and understood exactly what was happening.

Fai needed to learn control, and quickly. His magical training couldn't wait for him to accustom himself to life in Seresu's royal court; it had to begin as soon as possible.

Opening his eyes, he turned Fai to face him. Gently, he again stroked the boy's dirty, overlong hair. "Fai?" he queried. The child still looked too distressed for Ashura's comfort. "Fai, what happened? Why did you think I planned to send you back to that...that place?" Ashura couldn't bring himself to be more explicit. The pit and tower had been horrific beyond words, and he continued to use Fai's own euphemism for his former place of imprisonment.

"Not you, them. Those other people. They didn't listen to you, they didn't obey you," Fai said softly. He dragged his arm across his face, wiping at his runny nose and teary eyes. "But I thought you... I thought you were going to..."

"Yes, Fai?"

"Never mind." The child cast his eyes downward, refusing to meet Ashura's. "I was wrong."

Something was wrong, that was certain. "Fai, I promise no one here will harm you."

"You can't be sure!" Fai burst out. "They don't listen to you! Even your cousin, the way she spoke to you, and you just let her..."

Ashura began to get a glimmer of understanding. "I take it that no one ever disagreed or argued with the ruler in your own country?"

Fai nodded miserably. "No one ever dared to speak like that to the sovereign. They would have been punished immediately."

"I see." No wonder Fai had reached all the wrong conclusions and become so upset. Ashura's own court could be rather contentious at times. Suresu's nobles had always been that way, even in his father's and grandfather's times, and he'd never given the behavior any thought or concern. But such a court was clearly outside Fai's experience, and Ashura could see how it might terrify the abused child into believing the worst.

"Fai," he tried to explain, "things are different here. That kind of...of formality—" Oppression, he wanted to say, but restrained himself. Customs often varied drastically from place to place, and his own family had never been particularly virtuous. Nor himself. He was the worst of all. The unilateral and catastrophic decisions he had recently made proved that beyond any doubt.

"It's just not done here," he said. "The court must be able to speak its mind..."

He paused, reflecting on the reasons why Seresu's court and wizards had such freedoms and powers. Even they didn't know the real reasons for the way the court was structured. Even he hadn't known, until just this past month. But given the truth and the course he had lately chosen, the royal court's autonomous tendencies were absolutely essential.

"Fai," he continued, "as you saw, they do obey me. They just have the right to question me if they believe I am not taking all things into consideration or if my behavior seems aberrant to them. And as for Lady Kendappa—" he smiled fondly "—who would ever have the courage to tell her to mind her tongue? In truth, I value her advice a great deal."

Fai finally lifted his bloodshot eyes to Ashura's. "S-so, they won't—"

"They will not hurt you or send you away," Ashura reiterated, feeling it essential to reassure the boy.

"And F— My brother, they won't burn him when we're not here to stop them?"

Ashura raised his brows in surprise, but realized that this would also be a natural concern of Fai's. "Of course not. They'll do exactly as they were told. They will correct the...the physical damage, and prepare him as I ordered."

"And they won't do anything to you?"

"No, Fai, they won't hurt me." Not even if it were essential that they should, he reflected bitterly, remembering his dreams of Seresu's terrible future. "It would never even occur to them to do me harm. They only want to protect me."

"Oh." Fai looked thoughtful.

Ashura stood up and held out his hand. "Come, Fai. Let's go out into the castle now."

Fai did not take the proffered hand. He gnawed his lip and remained unmoving. "Are you sure? They'll let me stay? Even though I'm a twin? Even after what I've done?"

Clearly, trust didn't come easily to this child. Ashura marveled that Fai had trusted him enough to come to Seresu. Or perhaps the boy had only been desperate to escape his imprisonment. In his own country, the only other person Fai had relied on was his brother, but that was impossible now. "Fai, it will be all right. There is no stigma attached to twins here. No one here will blame or revile you for having been born a twin. As for your magic, they'll only want you to learn control over it. I think that's a very good idea, don't you?"

Fai nodded. "I didn't like what happened."

"You now know how to stop it, correct? Once you have learned control, it won't ever happen again." Ashura extended his hand again. "Are you ready now?"

"I— Yes." Fai grasped Ashura's hand with a surprisingly strong grip considering his emaciation. "I'm ready."

Fortunately, Vainamoinen and Suhail had had the sense to disperse the crowd and send them away while Ashura had been reassuring Fai. Only Lady Kendappa remained outside the shrine. She waited on the first of the steps leading up into the castle, standing with her hands clasped demurely before her.

"Your Majesty, Lord Fai," she said formally. "I trust all is well now?"

"Yes," Ashura replied.

"Good. I've sent the maids on ahead, with instructions to set up everything in your chambers, cousin." She nodded discreetly to Fai. "I felt that would be for the best."

"Excellent. You've comprehended the situation perfectly."

She spoke quietly into Ashura's ear, "The council has agreed to wait until tomorrow to speak with you. You should be able to think up an adequate excuse to pacify them by then. You're creative that way." She bobbed a curtsey then went on ahead without waiting for an answer.

Which was just as well, as Ashura didn't have one for her.

There were a great many steps up to the main body of the castle, and in his weakened, almost skeletal physical state, Fai just couldn't manage to climb them all. Ashura ended up carrying him the rest of the way to the family wing. He ignored how everyone they passed in the corridors pretended not to stare, and hoped Fai wasn't too disturbed by all the scrutiny. The way the child's fingers clenched around his neck and shoulders told him Fai had realized he was the center of attention.

Inside Ashura's chambers a rather large number of servants scurried purposefully about, far more than he judged necessary for the care of one young boy. "Is there a reason for this crowd?" he asked Kendappa as he felt Fai clutch at him and tense up again.

"I didn't order this many," she replied. "I assume they wanted a look at Fai. You know how fast gossip travels in this castle."

"Yes, I know very well," he said with a sigh.

Kendappa stepped forward and clapped her hands sharply. All movement ceased and every eye turned toward her, Ashura, and Fai. Clothing rustled with a wave of bows and curtsies. Kendappa announced, "We do not require the services of everyone present. You people, and you three over there—" she singled out five of Ashura's personal servants plus three maidservants, "you stay. The rest of you, return to your regular duties at once."

Ashura's rooms emptied swiftly. When the extra servants were gone, Fai lifted his head and asked timidly, "They wanted to see me?"

"Of course," Ashura told him. "You've just become a very important part of their lives."

While Fai chewed on that information, Kendappa went into the private bath. She reappeared in the doorway a moment later. "Bring him along, Your Majesty," she said. "That mob actually accomplished something useful. The bath is already prepared."

After beckoning several of the maidservants to follow, Ashura carried Fai in and set him down on the elaborately tiled floor, next to the free-standing, copper tub full of steaming water. "Fai," he said, again kneeling before the child, "these people are going to help you get cleaned up. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"You're not staying?" Fai asked, wringing his hands together.

"I need to discuss a few things with Lady Kendappa, but we'll be just outside. Is that all right? If you need anything, tell the servants and they will let me know." He glanced up at the waiting servants. "They will do so immediately upon your request," he added firmly. They all hurried to bob their heads and curtsey.

He turned back to Fai. "So will you be all right for a little while?"

Fai straightened up. "I will be fine, Your Majesty," he said with quiet dignity.

Ashura stroked his hair again. "Remember, I'll be right outside." Then he got up, took Lady Kendappa's arm, and led her out to the main rooms.

Kendappa took the opportunity to have the rest of the servants to finish preparing suitable clothes for Fai, and to fetch some clear broth from the kitchens. "Because I don't think he can handle solid food yet without getting sick, cousin," she told Ashura. "It might be a few days before he can eat anything more than soups and maybe a little sopped bread."

Ashura agreed with her reasoning. There had been nothing in that pit to eat except for... He didn't want to think about it. Fai's horrible physical condition proclaimed that the boy had preferred starvation. Ashura hoped the confused flow of time in the pit had obviated any need for Fai to eat much, but he couldn't be sure and he doubted Fai would ever speak of it.

With Fai settled, he turned back to his own problems. After making certain he and Kendappa were alone, he said, "Now tell me what has transpired here in my absence."

"Can't you guess?" she asked with surprise. "Ashura, you left a terrible mess behind you when you ran off this morning. Everyone has been frantic all day. You must know what we all thought. None of the wizards could locate you, which worried everyone even more, considering what that usually means." She glanced back toward the bath with a shrewd expression. "Where exactly is this Valeria? I've never heard of it before, and neither has anyone else."

"It's a country very, very far away."

"Far away, is it?" she said knowingly. "Ashura, the wizards could not find you, and yet you live. I know what that means, and so do the wizards. You swore you'd give up world-walking when you became king."

"It was necessary." He also looked in the direction of the bathroom. "I had to go, Kendappa."

She sighed. "Did you tell us the truth about Fai? Is he really a prince?"

"Yes, but he is the last survivor of his house. The whole country was destroyed, and he and his brother imprisoned." He shook his head. "You don't want to hear the details, cousin. Trust me."

"It was that bad, truly?"

"It was worse than you can possibly imagine. Please be kind to him. He's had a hard life."

"That is obvious from his condition. How did you manage to find him, anyway? And why..." She hesitated. "Ashura, why did you want swords and hemlock this morning, before you left? There was only one conclusion we could reach. I can't see how any of this is connected."

"It's difficult to explain." Difficult? More like impossible. He could not tell her the truth, not about his dreams, the family curse, nor even about the Witch of Dimensions. Then he almost laughed. She wouldn't believe him even if he did tell her the full truth. No one would. But perhaps some small part of the truth would suffice. "Fai and his brother... They called to me, Kendappa."

"Called to you?" she echoed. "Across worlds? How is that possible?"

"Fai is untutored in the use of his magic, but as you have seen, he is very powerful." Ashura said evasively. He didn't mention the pit or the way it had nullified all magic before its destruction, which certainly would have also nullified his argument. "I assume his twin brother was equally powerful, before he died."

"I still don't understand how that has anything to do with your behavior this morning."

Ashura decided that the creativity Kendappa had scornfully mentioned earlier should now come into play. "I reached them too late. Fai's brother killed himself, Kendappa. He threw himself from the tower where he was imprisoned."

"They called to you strongly enough that you went to them, and one of them committed suicide," she said slowly. "You're implying they affected your mental state." She tapped a finger against her chin. "Yes, that reasoning might do well enough to placate the council, as long as you make it clear that your senses have returned to normal. They might even ignore the issue of your world-walking."

"You don't believe me?"

"Oh, I believe you have given me the bare facts. I just haven't reached the conclusion you desire."

"Kendappa..."

She laid a hand against his cheek and gazed into his face. "My poor, foolish cousin, I don't know what was troubling you so much this past month that it drove you to such extremes, or why you won't explain, but I do believe this: No one who plans to kill himself brings home a child to raise."

He covered her hand with his. "Thank you, Kendappa."


	7. Chapter 7

Yūi wasn't sure what to make of the servants tending him. He hadn't been treated so well in a very long time, and never pampered and fussed over like this. In Valeria, before he'd been imprisoned, the servants had been loathe to even touch him or Fai, and only did so because it was required of them. They had detested the misfortune he and his brother had carried, and had feared that too much close contact would contaminate or harm them. Yūi and Fai had always been unwelcome, and the servants unfailingly grim and silent.

The servants now with him displayed absolutely no repulsion at all. Rather, they seemed quite pleased, and chattered happily as they went about their duties. Yūi didn't know how to respond, and passively allowed them to bathe him and wash his long hair, then help him from the tub and towel him dry. When they spoke to him, he replied in monosyllables. Instead of chastising him for his lack of courtesy, as he expected, they cooed sympathetically and offered him reassurances.

Not only were the servants strange. In his whole life he'd never had access to the ruler's private chambers. He was afraid to touch anything, even though the servants made free use of various items in the large washroom.

Yūi found Seresu and its people bewildering.

One of the maids left briefly, then returned bearing a beautiful set of white nightclothes, made of the smoothest, finest linen and decorated with elegant blue embroideries of interlaced knotwork designs. The patterns reminded him a little of those used in Valeria. However, they were sharper, more geometric, with pointed three- and four-lobed knots being prominent. It made them different enough that he would never mistake them for those from his home country.

Was that garment for him? He hadn't worn such nice, soft clothing in so very long. He wasn't sure if he could or should. It didn't seem right. He looked around frantically, but his prisoner's tunic was nowhere in sight. "Where are my clothes?"

The maid said, "Right here, Lord Fai. Let us help you with them."

Yūi was still unaccustomed to being called by his brother's name, let alone to being addressed respectfully by a title. Both startled him, and Fai's name reminded him that he didn't want to be Yūi anymore. But he couldn't help it; no matter what others called him, he was still Yūi.

He stared down at the floor so the maid couldn't see his guilt. "No, I meant my real clothes. What I was wearing before." His prisoner's tunic was the only clothing he deserved.

She wrinkled her nose. "That thing? I removed it. You don't want that."

"But—"

"Now hold up your arms, yes, just like that."

Before he knew it, the maids had slipped the fine garment over his head and arranged it around his body. One maid started gently detangling his hair with an exquisitely carved ivory comb inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while another filed and buffed his ragged nails to shining smoothness.

Again, not knowing what else to do, Yūi surrendered and stood passively.

When the servants deemed their ministrations complete, they wrapped him in a warm robe and gave him thick slippers to wear.

Yūi plucked at his sleeve. "These...these clothes aren't really mine. Whose are they?"

"They were the king's, my lord," a maid told him. "He wore them when he was your age. Now they are yours. He wants you to use them, at least until we have some new clothes made to your measure."

Yūi vaguely remembered King Ashura saying something of the sort back in the shrine, but it was all snarled up in a chaotic blur of fear and confusion. "Oh," he said helplessly. "All right, then."

A maid gave a final twitch to the arrangement of his clothes. "There," she said to him, "you're done, Lord Fai. Let's go show His Majesty. I'm sure he'll be pleased." She sounded quite pleased with herself, at least.

The maids led him out. Tantalizing smells came to him, and he heard music. When they entered the common room, he saw Lady Kendappa sitting by the fireplace and strumming on a harp. King Ashura sat across from her, reading some official-looking documents. Both looked up when he arrived.

Lady Kendappa stopped playing and set aside her harp. She beamed at him. "Oh, that's much better. Don't you agree, cousin?"

The king put his papers down on a side table. "Indeed, but I think he's more interested in the soup than our opinion."

Yūi realized he had been sniffing the air. Embarrassed, he opened his mouth to apologize, but his stomach growled. His mouth snapped shut and his eyes widened with shock. That was something else he hadn't experienced in a long time. He'd rarely been very hungry in the pit and had been grateful for that mercy, although there had been some unbearable times that he tried not to remember... But now he felt ravenous.

"I think you'd better have something to eat before you go to bed," King Ashura said.

"Bed?" Yūi said.

"You may not know it, but it's rather late."

He would get to sleep in a real bed? Yūi couldn't even remember what that was like.

The king came over to him and, with a light hand on Yūi's shoulder, guided him over to a table and chair. On it was a bowl, some eating and drinking utensils, a tureen, and a pitcher, all made of precious silver. A manservant ladled the delicious smelling broth into the bowl. Yūi stared at it.

"Go ahead," King Ashura encouraged him. "You need it." He poured a light pink liquid from the pitcher into the cup himself, and set it down by Yūi's bowl.

Casting wary glances all around him, Yūi gingerly sat down at the table. He picked up the cup and sipped delicately. The drink was wonderful, a cool, sweet fruit juice that he didn't recognize. He took a big gulp.

"Not too fast, Fai, or you'll get sick," Lady Kendappa said. "Try some of the soup. Don't worry, it's not too hot to eat."

It had been a long time since his early lessons in manners, or since he'd needed such skills, but Yūi did remember the proper use of a spoon. He dipped it into the soup and brought it to his lips. It was hot, but not too much so, and tasted even better than the fruit drink. He wanted to pick up the bowl and drain it all down, but refrained. He would not embarrass himself by acting like a savage in front of the king and Lady Kendappa, not when they were being so nice to him. Those old lessons in manners were useful, after all.

Yūi only managed to eat about half the soup before his shriveled stomach couldn't hold any more. He was disappointed, but didn't want to get sick in the king's chambers. That would be worse than eating like a barbarian. But he also didn't want anyone to think he didn't like the food. He didn't know what to tell them, and sat staring at the bowl.

"I think that's enough," Lady Kendappa said, rescuing him from his dilemma. "You don't have to eat it all, Fai. This is a good start."

They were being so nice to him, and he couldn't even eat his food. Yūi felt very bad about that. Then he yawned, and his eyelids drooped. He jerked them open. "Oh," he said, surprised. "I— I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"I think it's time you went to bed," King Ashura said, amused.

At least the king wasn't mad. He sounded as though he had been expecting Yūi to fall asleep at the table.

"Okay," Yūi said. He was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed.

He hadn't expected to be taken to the king's own bedchamber, though, nor being settled in the enormous, richly curtained bed it contained. Feeling intimidated and a little frightened that he was intruding where he didn't belong, he said to the king, "But this is yours. I can't sleep here."

King Ashura merely smiled and tucked him in. "I don't need it tonight. We can't have you sleeping in a chair or on the floor, now, can we?"

Considering where he'd last slept, Yūi didn't think anything was wrong with the floor, but he didn't want to argue. He felt lost in the giant, elaborately carved mahogany bed, but at the same time, it felt so nice. The feather mattress, smooth sheets, and pillows were so comfortable. He wanted to snuggle into the weight of the blankets and thick fur coverlets on top of him. It was so pleasant to be warm, and clean, and fed. It all had to be a dream; it couldn't be real. Could it?

The king said, "Tomorrow you can pick out your own apartments, and we'll have them furnished however you like."

"My own?" He'd get his own rooms, too? "Any I want?"

"Well, you'll have to choose from what's available in the royal wing, but there are many that are unused. Right now, only Kendappa and I live here permanently."

"Are any next to yours free?"

The king nodded. "Yes."

"Can I have them?"

"But you haven't even seen them yet, Fai. Others might suit you better."

"It doesn't matter. I want those."

The king gave him the nicest smile yet, without even a trace of the sadness Yūi had sensed in him so often this day. "Then they're yours. Now get some sleep."

King Ashura waved a hand. The magic lights in the room all went out, and even the fire in the hearth dimmed somewhat. "Good night, Fai," he said, pulling the bed curtains closed. He slipped out, shutting the door after him.

Yūi still had a hard time believing his new situation was real and not just a dream. He half expected to wake and find himself in the pit with all those horrible dead bodies.

"Oh, Fai," he whispered. "I wish you had lived. You should be here, too. You'd have liked it here."

But if Fai had lived, King Ashura could never have come, not while the pit and tower were intact. Instead, Yūi and Fai would both still be imprisoned, even now. Only that strange, frightening sorcerer had made freedom possible. It must have been he who had destroyed the pit and tower. The price of escape had been high, though, so high. Too high. It had cost Fai his life, and Yūi everything else. It was his fault Fai was dead, and he kept thinking he should die, too, so he could join his brother. It would be justice, wouldn't it? He deserved to die.

He was a monster, a monster who had condemned his poor, innocent brother for the sake of his own survival. That was why he'd abandoned his name, why he'd taken Fai's name. By doing so, he had hoped to keep Fai alive and to bury the monster Yūi forever, but it would never end, not ever. Not as long as he couldn't forget that he was really Yūi. Not until he brought Fai back.

Not only that, but he was lying to King Ashura, all the time, and hiding so much from him about what a monster he really was, and what horrible things he planned to do someday. But the king wanted something from him, as well, and hadn't told him what, so maybe it was okay to lie. Besides, Yūi had to do what that sorcerer had told him. He had live and grow up so he could go on that journey the sorcerer wanted, even kill some of the people he would accompany as the sorcerer had told him. He had to do those things so he could bring Fai back to life. He just wished it didn't make him feel so awful.

Yūi was terribly, horribly sorry Fai was dead, but he wasn't sorry he was here, now. He wanted to stay forever and forget everything else. And that made him feel bad, too.

Why did things have to be so complicated? Why had his and Fai's lives been so terrible? Why couldn't he and Fai both have had this nice, new life with the king?

Sniffling and with tears forming in his eyes, Yūi buried himself under the covers and tried to pretend everything was okay.

Just for a little while.

Despite his best efforts to make himself even more miserable, the exhaustion and strains of the day caught up with him, and the comfort and security he now experienced lulled him. He fell into a deep sleep without noticing.


	8. Chapter 8

After Kendappa left, Ashura lightly monitored his new charge. Fai seemed to be indulging in some overdue grieving. Hardly unexpected, as the rush of the day's events had given him no time to absorb everything that had occurred, or to truly acknowledge the death of his brother. Still, the poor child really needed to get some rest. It took a while, but Fai finally succumbed to his exhaustion and drifted off to sleep.

Now that that worry was out of the way, Ashura realized that, like Fai, he was also tired and hungry. He hadn't had anything to eat since the previous evening's meal, and as for rest, there had been precious little in two days. He'd only had a limited period of forced unconsciousness last night. That hardly signified, unless he accounted getting knocked senseless by an overdone protection spell then having some of the most terrifying dream experiences of his life as restful. And he did not.

Fortunately, he had dismissed the servants before they had cleaned up the leftovers of Fai's dinner. Poor Fai had been terribly concerned with making a good impression and had been so careful of his eating and table manners. Ashura had no such qualms, and drank the rest of the cold soup directly from the tureen. He then went to his liquor table and got himself a goblet of wine.

The comfortably cushioned armchair by the hearth beckoned. He might not have wanted Fai sleeping in a chair or on the floor, but right now those options seemed quite attractive to him. He sat gazing into the fire and sipping his wine. Tomorrow was likely to be exhausting, so he should get whatever rest he could manage.

A few minutes of quiet gave his mind a chance to still for the first time all day, and with the calm came a more comprehensive esoteric awareness of his surroundings. With resignation, he realized that a wizard was again watching over him, this time with a great deal more vigilance than had been used earlier this morning.

He wasn't surprised; he had been expecting it, after all. He had given everyone quite a scare, and suspected they had been on tenterhooks since the incident on the eastern wall a little over a fortnight ago. Because he had already decided he would endure such supervision, at least for a little while, he didn't make any attempt to disrupt or block it.

He did, however, send a small pulse of acknowledgement to his watcher, just to alert the wizard that he knew of the surveillance and was willing to accept it without argument. That should reassure everyone a little.

He was startled to discover that his watcher was the chief wizard himself. That was highly unusual, considering the lateness of the hour.

He received a query in return. Suhail wanted to know if it was all right to visit now.

Curious about Suhail's intentions, Ashura responded in the affirmative. He sipped his wine and settled down to wait. He assumed Suhail's forthcoming conversation would revolve around his own recent, abnormal behavior, and sighed. He had hoped all these tiresome discussions would wait until tomorrow. At least he had already hashed out an excuse with Kendappa.

He noticed that another wizard had taken over the job of monitoring him. That meant Suhail was already on his way. It wasn't long before Ashura heard a light tap at his door, and then the chief wizard projected his voice into the room. "May I enter, Your Majesty?"

Ashura flicked a finger toward the door, and it opened to admit Lord Suhail. The old wizard came in and bowed.

Suhail was carrying with him a large book. Ashura frowned, recognizing it. It was the book of wonder tales he had used as a reference, when he had created his spell to visit the Witch of Dimensions. He cursed himself for not realizing it was missing from his chambers, but in all fairness he had been rather preoccupied. Now he couldn't help but wonder why Suhail had taken the book, or what conclusions he had drawn from it.

Ashura's nobles and wizards were already upset enough, and would require a fair amount of careful handling to pacify. He didn't want to even consider their reaction should they learn that he still planned his own death, albeit now many years delayed, and that Fai was destined to play a part in it. For Fai's sake, if not his own, the details of his bargain with the Witch must remain secret. In fact, it would be best if no one knew he had ever been to see her at all.

"Lord Suhail, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Ashura asked warily.

The wizard stroked his long, gray beard. "Surely you don't need to ask such a question, Your Majesty," he said directly.

"No," Ashura replied. "I don't. As you can see, all is well. But of course you already knew that."

Suhail didn't deny it. "I am also curious as to how Lord Fai is adapting to his new circumstances." He looked around. "I assume he is in bed?"

"It took him a while to unwind enough to fall asleep. He's had an eventful day."

"That is true for us all, Your Majesty."

"Yes, it is," Ashura acknowledged with regret. He blatantly eyed the book Suhail held.

Suhail smiled and tapped it lightly. "I confess that I wished to return this to you tonight. I found it in my study. I suppose I must have accidentally picked it up with my own notebooks and materials earlier. As you must realize, I spent some time here investigating your disappearance, Your Majesty."

He had accidentally picked it up, had he? Ashura thought that rather disingenuous of him. The Lord Wizard Suhail D Bhagat never did anything without careful deliberation.

"I see," Ashura said. "I suppose now the whole castle knows I still sometimes like to read children's stories. The gossip must surely be amusing."

"Not particularly. I rather doubt anyone else ever knew this book was in your possession, and in truth, I doubt they would have cared or made anything of it."

Ashura schooled his features into an impassive mask. That meant Suhail had intentionally taken the book to hide it from everyone else. "Indeed? I must thank you for protecting my reputation as a mature adult, however unintentionally you might have done so."

"Surely no one could fault you for such a small indulgence."

What game was Suhail playing at? "That is a relief. Would you care for some wine?" When in doubt, retreat into formal manners. That tactic often worked to give Ashura some time to think.

"In fact, I would. Thank you, Your Majesty."

It seemed Suhail had more to say. Ashura got up and poured another goblet of wine, which he handed to his wizard. Then he indicated the chair opposite his own. "Please, sit down, my lord."

The old wizard appeared content to bide his time before explaining his intentions. He sat comfortably and sipped from his goblet. "Excellent, as always, Your Majesty," he said. "You always did have good taste in wine."

"Thank you." Ashura returned to his own seat.

Suhail placed his goblet on the small table next to his chair, and again tapped the book he now held in his lap. "I remember these stories from my own childhood," he said, smiling reminiscently. "I used to pretend the Witch of Dimensions was real. Now that I'm older and wiser, in theory, at least..."

Ashura kept his expression polite and placid. "Hopefully, in practice, as well."

"My wisdom, or lack thereof, is still being tested, even in my dotage," the chief wizard said ruefully. "However, one thing I realized when I grew up was that the power the Witch wields in these tales would make her something akin to a god."

"Or more than a god," Ashura muttered without thinking. At once he took himself to task for that; Suhail would not have missed the real meaning. He must be more tired than he realized, to have said such a thing aloud.

Suhail narrowed his eyes. "Quite a frightening thought, my liege. Despite that, sometimes," he added with a direct look at Ashura, "sometimes I still wonder if she could be a real personage. Myths and fairy tales are often based on facts, after all."

This was treading on dangerous territory. "An interesting speculation," Ashura said neutrally.

"Yes, it is, isn't it? It would certainly make the universe an even more intriguing place than it already is. However, I don't suppose I'll ever really know." Appearing to drop the subject, Suhail took another sip of wine and glanced over toward the closed bedchamber door. Offhandedly, he said, "You know, Majesty, I never before believed a mage could possess such power as that child."

If Ashura hadn't already been wary, he would have certainly become so now. "Life is full of surprises. Not many are welcome to everyone, but Fai is welcome to me," he stated with emphasis, wanting to make clear that Fai's presence was not up for debate.

"I didn't say that Lord Fai was not so to me, nor that I thought his strength a wholly unpleasant surprise." Suhail gave him an interested look. "Although I suppose some might consider it so. Today's demonstration of his power was quite sobering, but as you said, he can be trained. The guardianship of such a child is surely an immense responsibility."

Ashura inclined his head. "That is an understatement."

"It could be considered an immense honor, as well. The gods must indeed love you, Your Majesty."

Ashura eyed his chief wizard. "I imagine it appears so, at any rate." Ashura certainly did not consider himself beloved of the gods, not with the future facing him. Neither did the gods appear to favor Fai. If anything, they were both mere pawns in some great, cosmic game that he couldn't yet fathom.

But the Witch had given him Fai, and had even provided some instructions on what needed to be done for him. She had said those things were essential to Fai's survival, so she must believe the child could somehow live through the disastrous events Ashura had foreseen.

Ashura wondered, though, just how much leeway she had when it came to granting wishes. She had certainly interpreted his own wish creatively, responding to what had been in his heart as well as his more rational head. Had she foreseen that he would raise Fai, and so made that future a reality under her own control when the opportunity arose?

Some things she and her servants had said made him think that might be the case. Why else would they have expected to meet him, and even known his identity in advance? Why else interpret his wish so broadly and provide such a complex and ambiguous solution, as opposed to the simple, if drastic, request he had stated aloud to her?

What else had she foreseen that he had not?

"I know it is so." Suhail set down his goblet and stood. He finally handed Ashura the book. "I believe I should retire now. At my age, I am afraid that I can no longer endure such late nights. With your permission, Your Majesty?"

Ashura held the book with both hands, trying to keep his fingers from clenching. "Granted."

Suhail bowed and quietly left.

When the door closed, Ashura flipped open the book. Nestled between the pages were the folded papers holding his notes and outlines, and the final version of the spell he had created to visit the Witch of Dimensions.

There was no possible way his old teacher could have failed to recognize his handwriting and magical style. Ashura drew in a deep breath, aware that Suhail must suspect the truth of Ashura's departure and the Witch of Dimensions' part in Fai's origins. That discussion about the Witch and Fai's power could mean nothing else.

Ashura reviewed the cat-and-mouse conversation and came to an inescapable, and rather surprising, conclusion. Suhail had come here tonight to make Ashura aware of his knowledge, and, shockingly, to offer approval and support. The old wizard had been in unexpectedly good humor, especially surprising considering the day's events, and had seemed honestly pleased with both his former student and with Fai. Did Suhail truly believe that nonsense he had spouted about Ashura being loved by the gods?

Ashura considered what he knew of Suhail's religious convictions, and reluctantly decided it was very likely. However, he doubted the chief wizard would be quite so pleased were he in possession of all the facts.

Ashura had never considered that anyone would put such an interpretation on his actions, especially with regards to Fai. But Suhail's misconceptions were quite fortuitous, and provided Ashura with considerable latitude in these and related matters. He should not waste the opportunity providence had granted. It virtually guaranteed that Fai's presence in Seresu would never be contested by the wizards or the religious orders. And if they accepted Fai, so would the nobles and with them, the rest of the country.

Perhaps the gods truly had smiled upon him and Fai both, if only for this one brief moment in time.

Ashura pondered the book in his hands, and the mysterious, uncanny being who dominated the stories it contained. Few would believe the truth, even if both he and Suhail had it officially proclaimed from the highest pinnacles of Luval Castle to the meanest of peasant villages. For most, the Witch of Dimensions would always remain a myth. That would be for the best.

He sipped more wine, and decidedly put both Suhail and the Witch from his mind, instead focusing on kinder thoughts. Not surprisingly, they centered on his new charge. He thought it would be a pleasant thing to raise a child, now that his own dreams had forced him to admit that long-repressed desire to himself.

He idly wondered if Fai would like to read some fairy tales. The child appeared to be about six or seven years old, if one accounted for his dilapidated condition. Physically, he was still at the right age. There was no telling how long he'd been in that time-distorted pit, though, and he might be much older. Fai's experiences also burdened his spirit beyond his apparent physical years, but perhaps he might yet enjoy a few childish fancies once he settled in and time dulled his grief somewhat.

Not these, though. Ashura took the book and his notes to his private library, and hid them on a top shelf, behind some stuffy old tomes about the royal family's history that not even the most pompous members of said royal family could ever endure reading.

Then he returned to his armchair and dimmed the lights, gazing thoughtfully into the fire.

Sometime later he started awake to a tickling sensation at the back of his head. Disoriented, he looked around, wondering where he was. It finally occurred to him that he had fallen asleep in his chair.

The fire had burned down to softly glowing embers. Judging by its state, he must have been asleep for several hours. It was still full dark. He conjured a magelight to see by, got up, and stretched. His back and neck complained loudly, reminding him that he was too old to be sleeping in chairs anymore.

The room had grown chilly during the night. He put another log in the hearth and ignited it with a small incendiary spell. As he warmed his hands before the roaring flames, he felt another tickle at the base of his skull. At the same time, a muffled noise came from the bedchamber. It sounded like a child's voice.

Fai.

Ashura extended his awareness beyond the closed door. Fai was caught in the throes of a nightmare. Poor child. After witnessing the death of his brother and then enduring such a stressful day, it was not surprising that Fai did not sleep well. Then again, Fai probably had not had a truly restful night since his imprisonment. Possibly there had been few even before then.

Ashura hoped that could eventually change for him. Bad enough one of them was condemned to nightmares without respite. He didn't want his child also afflicted for a lifetime.

He went into the bedchamber, the magelight floating before him to illuminate the way. The fire here had also gone out, and he rekindled it to warm the room. Then he pulled back the bed curtains.

Fai was still asleep, but his head thrashed back and forth against the pillows and sweat sheened his skin. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright and let out an ear-splitting shriek of "FAI!"

Then he folded in on himself and dissolved into tears.

For a moment, Ashura stood there watching helplessly. He had no experience with this sort of thing and wasn't sure what to do. What had he—and the Witch—been thinking, to believe he of all people could take on such a responsibility? He considered calling Kendappa or Vainamoinen or even the servants. Surely among them someone would know how to handle the situation.

Fai's weeping lessened, and he seemed to become aware that he wasn't alone. He looked up at Ashura with blank, wet eyes. Ashura wasn't sure if Fai even recognized him at this moment. "It's my fault," Fai whimpered. "It's my fault he's dead." He wrapped his bony arms around himself tightly. "It's my fault," he keened, rocking back and forth. "It's my fault."

Ashura had huddled in solitary misery with the aftermath of his own dreams many, many times. His whole being shuddered with sympathy for Fai's plight. He couldn't allow his child to suffer as he did with nightmares. The same untutored instincts that had driven him during Fai's outburst in the shrine moved him now. He sat on the bed next to Fai and took the boy into his arms.

"Hush, child, hush," he murmured, rubbing Fai's gaunt back gently. "It's not your fault. It's not."

Fai buried his face in the soft cloth of Ashura's tunic. "It is, it is. Fai's dead because of my wish. I wanted to escape, and he died for it. It should've been me. It should've been me." He started crying again.

"Shhh, no one can blame you for wanting to escape." Ashura shook his head, disgusted with himself for that bit of inanity. What was he doing, attempting to reason with a traumatized and abused child at such a time? This was not exactly his finest hour. He tried again. "It's all right. It was just a dream. Just a dream."

Fai continued to babble amid his sobs, often incoherently, about his fault, about his brother, about how he should have died, too. Intermingled with all that self-castigation he also spoke of vague promises made to a monstrous stranger whom Ashura feared he recognized yet hoped he did not. All Ashura could do was hold Fai and mouth simple reassurances.

Finally, Fai's tears slowed, and he pulled away. Reluctantly, Ashura allowed him to lie back against the pillows. Fai's hollow, unseeing eyes gazed upwards at the brocaded canopy overhead. "I'll fix it," he said. "I'll fix it, I'll fix it. I'll bring him back to life."

Ashura was briefly rendered mute by this resolute statement. Again, he didn't know what to do. What Fai wanted was impossible, yet this was the wrong time to point out that harsh fact of life. All Ashura could say was, "Fai, it's all right. Go back to sleep."

Fai said again, trancelike, "It's my fault, but he promised. He promised Fai could come back to life. I can fix it. I can. Fai, I'll bring you back. I will." He kept murmuring the same thing, over and over, until he finally fell asleep.

His mind racing, Ashura watched Fai sleep for a long time. The child must not have been fully awake, to say such things. Ashura considered the "he" Fai kept referring to, and his own suspicions about the stranger's identity. The person must be the dark sorcerer who had tampered with Ashura's own prophetic dreams, and who had set the two monstrous curses upon Fai.

That second curse, especially, confused all. Ashura knew he held the key to defeating it—more, he was the key to defeating it. Its breaking, he knew, would spare the world. However, he feared that its breaking might well destroy Fai as completely as its manifestation, and that nothing positive would be gained for Fai no matter what transpired. Why would that sorcerer offer up a promise of new life to a child he had gone to such insanely great lengths to condemn in such a particularly vile and seemingly inescapable way?

And was it even possible...? Could that sorcerer have told Fai the truth? Was there a way to bring back the dead? Surely not. Ashura considered what little he knew of the sorcerer. That one's power was indeed immense, greater than even the gods' power, perhaps even on par with the Witch of Dimensions' power.

Yet, and yet, death was the one unalterable law of existence. All else could be bent and reshaped or even sometimes broken by a magician of sufficient strength and skill, but death was the uncontestable price of living. All that lived bowed to that inescapable fate.

Amidst all this speculation, one thing was absolutely certain: Fai wouldn't let his brother go anytime soon. There would be no funeral or interment as long as Fai believed it possible to resurrect his twin. Ashura could, perhaps, sing the death rites for Fai's brother, but that was all. He resigned himself to that, and to the likelihood that the body would need to be preserved for much longer than he had originally expected. It might even be for the best. Fai needed a reason to keep living. The hoped-for resurrection of his brother would drive him forward through life until he was ready to live for sounder and healthier reasons.

Ashura set to considering methods to accomplish the preservation of Fai's brother. This wasn't something he could achieve for long, but there were ways available to him that would help to extend the stasis spells beyond the normal durations used for state funerals. It would require a regular and consistent expenditure of magical energy.

Fortunately, he had an artifact in his keeping that he believed would help: a large, flawless fluorite crystal carved in the shape of a phoenix egg. The artifact was possessed of a peculiar magic that unnerved all who had owned it, and no one had ever managed to unlock its power successfully for their own use. The last non-royal owner hadn't been able to bear its presence, and upon his death some three hundred years ago had bequeathed it to the royal house to remove its uncomfortable influence from his own family line. From that point on it had been locked safely away so its power would cause no more disturbances.

The egg was the symbol both of new life and of resurrection, and the artifact's very aura somehow seemed to reflect those aspects. Ashura resolved that the egg should go to Fai's brother. Its strange magic should help to preserve the body for many months, perhaps even years, which surely should please Fai. The magnitude of Fai's own power ensured that he would not be even slightly perturbed by the egg's uncanny magic. Maybe Fai would find some comfort in its effects and its symbolism.


	9. Chapter 9

A light clattering sound woke Yūi, as though a shower of pebbles struck a window somewhere nearby. He lifted his head from the pillow and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He noticed the bed curtains were open. Although the flames were quite low, the fire still burned in its hearth, providing warmth and soft yellow light to see by.

Something moved slightly on the bed. Yūi looked around, and saw a dark head resting on folded arms beside him. It was the king. At some point during the night, he had pulled up a chair and fallen asleep by Yūi's side.

Yūi watched him for a while. The king had never bothered to change clothes, and appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Yūi reached out a hand, wanting to stroke the king's glossy black hair as his own had been stroked and petted yesterday, but then he remembered why the king was here at his bedside, and pulled back without making contact.

He had had a terrible nightmare about Fai's death, and the king had come to comfort him. Those odd events all seemed unreal, like a dream, to Yūi. Had he really cried all over the king and told him everything about Fai and his own guilt and the terrible bargains he'd made with that frightening sorcerer? Did the king now know all the lies and, even worse, all the truths? Did he finally understand what kind of horrible, despicable, worthless creature he'd taken in?

Surely King Ashura would send him away now, no matter what he'd said yesterday.

Yūi couldn't bear it.

A howl of wind came from the other side of the room, and with it more of that strange clattering noise.

With desolation in his heart, Yūi slid to the opposite side of the bed, careful not to jostle the mattress too much because he didn't want to wake the king. He parted the bed curtains and got up, shifted his long hair aside and behind his shoulders so it wouldn't trip him, then walked over to the windows. They were covered with floor-length, heavy drapes that served as insulation to keep out the cold. Like the bed curtains, the material was gorgeously brocaded in knotwork patterns and all shot through with gold and silver threads. Yūi shifted the curtains aside with one hand, revealing a set of doors, each inset with a large grid of glazed windowpanes. They led out onto a snow and ice covered balcony that overlooked a courtyard.

It was a little past dawn. Dark, ominous clouds blanketed the sky, and gray light filtered in through the panels of glass. Another gust rattled the windows, and there came more of that scrabbling, clattering sound. Yūi saw it was caused by flurries of tiny ice pellets driven by the wind.

He gazed out with a sense of bleak familiarity. His whole life had been full of ice and snow. Not just the pit of his imprisonment, but the rest of his birth country as well. His life and his memories told him that even the free parts of Valeria had been cold, in weather and in temperament.

But that hadn't been the people's fault. The country might still have had cold weather, but it also might have been a much nicer place if he and Fai had never been born. It was their fault that things had gone so horribly wrong there. Would things go wrong here, too? Fai was dead, but Yūi planned to preserve him indefinitely, and then resurrect him. Would that also preserve the misfortune he and Fai carried while they both had lived?

He heard the sound of soft footsteps, muffled by the thick, ornamental carpets that covered the floors, then felt a warm presence behind him. A hand rested lightly on his shoulder. He flinched a little and glanced up, into King Ashura's face. The king was also looking out the window.

King Ashura said, "Another storm begins, I see."

"Is it always so cold here?" Yūi couldn't help asking.

"It's not always this bad. We're at the end of the deep winter season right now. The weather should start to ease soon. However, Luval Castle is located in the northern mountains, so I'm afraid it stays quite cold here during the spring thaw and even high summer. The lowlands and southern parts of the country are kinder. Perhaps in the summer we shall go on progress and visit them, so you can see that not all is bitter cold and ice in Seresu."

Yūi was silent for a moment, during which another flurry of ice pellets hit the windows. The king didn't sound angry with him. He only seemed a little pensive, and that mood was directed at the weather. Yūi said, "I'm sorry I woke you. I tried not to."

The king patted his shoulder. "It's well past time to get up, Fai. We've been allowed to sleep late this morning." He smiled. "I imagine there are others who are also sleeping late today."

Fai. The king was still calling him Fai. Yūi relaxed a little. He couldn't have admitted to everything last night, not if the king was still using the name Yūi had assumed and wasn't asking him any uncomfortable questions. But Yūi thought he had babbled a great deal. He couldn't help wondering what the king did know.

Yūi gazed at him silently, not sure how to respond or what to feel. He still didn't believe he really belonged here with the king. The king's appearance only reinforced that belief. Despite having slept in such an awkward position, King Ashura looked immaculate to Yūi. Not even a single strand of hair hung out of place. He managed to make his wrinkled clothing look elegant, even with the tear stains and snot smears that now marred the expensive velvet. Yūi's feelings of insecurity intensified. Next to the king, Yūi felt rumpled and was painfully aware that his own hair was all mussed and tangled.

King Ashura said, "Since we're up, we might as well start the day." He pulled open the curtains, then went to put another log on the fire. He pointed a finger at it, and a spark of magic leapt and kindled the dying flames back to cheery life. "I'll call the servants. I imagine you're hungry." He left the bedchamber.

Yūi stared after him. The king sounded and acted much like he had yesterday. Was it possible he didn't know any of the truth? None at all? That he wouldn't send Yūi away?

Yūi wondered if maybe he hadn't babbled out all those terrible things in the night, that maybe he had only dreamed that he had exposed his faults and his lies. Either that, or he had been so incoherent in the midst of his nightmare and his misery that nothing he had said had made any sense. Maybe the king just thought it was all part of the nightmare, that it wasn't really real.

That was probably what had happened. Yūi believed his secrets were safe.

He should have been relieved, but instead he felt much worse. He hated all this lying, but he didn't want to be sent away, either. He wanted to stay so very, very much.

And that made him feel bad, too. Somehow, it felt like a betrayal of Fai. He should have died with Fai. He should still die. Deep down, he knew he deserved it.

The sound of bustling and chattering came to him from outside the bedchamber, distracting him from his self-destructive thoughts. He went to the door and paused in the entryway.

In the main room, a number of well-dressed and high-ranking menservants stood around the king, exclaiming unhappily about "his disheveled appearance." He responded with easy humor, as though he were accustomed to such chiding from mere servants. Yūi thought they were crazy; the king was perfect.

Two maidservants were setting up a breakfast table, from which wafted tantalizing smells, even better than last night. Yūi's stomach rumbled, again surprising him. He was even more surprised by how good it felt to be hungry, and also how strange. He would have to get used to normal feelings of hunger again, now that he was free of the pit.

Yūi was distracted from his rapt contemplation of the table when the king returned to the bedchamber, trailed by those very intimidating servants. The king said, "Come, Fai, let's get dressed, and then we'll have breakfast."

Two of the menservants descended on Yūi, and he found himself ushered first to the bathroom to wash his face and hands and even clean his teeth, then back into the bedchamber, where chests had been opened and a variety of clothing was being extracted. The servants helped him dress in undergarments of linen, then outer clothes of soft, finely woven white wool, decorated with light blue knotwork and trimmed with white fur.

He also wore stockings and intricately wrought leather shoes. He wasn't sure he liked that. He'd been barefoot for a long time and now his feet felt confined. All the clothes felt heavy and restrictive compared to the loose, threadbare prisoner's tunic he'd worn for so long, but the shoes gave him a trapped feeling. However, he knew he had no choice in this matter. Everyone he'd seen so far, even the servants, wore some kind of shoes or boots. He remembered that, a long time ago when he'd been grudgingly considered part of Valeria's royal court, he'd also worn shoes. He could get used to them again.

Yūi was heartened to see that, although he had the final say in what he wore and mostly dressed himself, the king was also relentlessly fussed over by the servants. However, unlike Yūi, the king wasn't fazed at all by the attention. Instead, he and his servants appeared to be involved in a practiced, well-choreographed routine, with everyone knowing which part they were expected to play at the proper times. Yūi watched surreptitiously, taking in what details he could, even as another servant came in and brushed his hair. This was his life now, and he needed to learn how to manage ordinary, everyday tasks like getting dressed, which were no longer simple activities he could do by himself.

On the heels of that thought he remembered Fai, and was again plunged into guilt-ridden depression. Fai should be here with him. Or Yūi shouldn't be here, or living, at all. He shouldn't be planning a future here, not with what he had done, and what he had promised to do in the future to a group of people he still hadn't even met—not with all of that hanging over his head. Why bother learning any new routines? Sooner or later, the king and his people might even discover the truth about Yūi and despise him. Then they would surely kill him or imprison him again.

He should just kill himself and be done with everything. Why should he even try to fit in?

"Fai? What is wrong?"

Startled out of his gloomy thoughts, Yūi looked up. The king stood before him and was regarding him seriously.

King Ashura asked, "Are you thinking of your brother?"

Yūi nodded numbly.

"I am so very sorry," the king said, and a shadow passed over his face. Yūi wondered what he was thinking, that he had looked so sad. The king continued, "I know this is very hard right now, and that you are also feeling overwhelmed, but it will get better with time, I promise."

Yūi said, "I know," then went silent again with guilt.

The king put a hand on Yūi's shoulder and steered him to the door. "Let's have something to eat."

Breakfast consisted of an array of foods, including a soup of minced meat and vegetables in broth, plus bread, cheese, and smoked meats, all sliced and carefully arranged on silver platters. There was also fruit juice and hot tea.

"I recommend that you try the soup, and maybe soak some of the bread in it if you feel up to something more substantial," the king said. "If that goes well, you might experiment with a small amount of solid food. But don't overdo it. You'll have plenty of time to try different foods."

Although Yūi was hungry, he remembered how he couldn't eat much last night, and agreed to follow the king's suggestions. The soup was good, the tiny pieces of minced meat easy to swallow. The bread was harder to manage, because it had been a long time since he'd chewed anything and his throat was unaccustomed to swallowing much of anything beyond melted snow anymore. Yūi found that the king was right, and if he sopped the bread in the soup it also went down reasonably well. This more substantial repast filled him up quickly. He tried a small piece of cheese, but it was too much for him. He regretfully left the remainder on his plate.

Over breakfast, the king quizzed him about some basic skills, like reading and writing. Yūi knew a little, but of course after he and Fai had been imprisoned there had been no lessons or opportunities to practice.

"We speak the same language," King Ashura said speculatively, "so our worlds might be aligned in other ways, as well. I hope that means we use a similar form of writing. It would be easier for you than starting anew. And now that I think on it, you'll need other lessons, as well."

He beckoned a servant over and said, "Go ask my cousin to join us as soon as she is up and presentable." The servant bowed and left, and the king turned back to Yūi. "You might think that such a refined lady would keep us waiting, but don't ever assume that of Kendappa. I imagine she will arrive rather quickly, no doubt perfectly attired and coifed. Kendappa never, ever sleeps late, and she is almost always impeccably groomed. It's a difficult thing, living in the shadow of so much perfection," King Ashura lamented.

Staring at the impeccably attired and groomed king, and remembering how even after sleeping in a chair King Ashura had still looked perfect, Yūi couldn't help but agree.

True to the king's prediction, Lady Kendappa arrived less than five minutes later. She dipped a quick curtsey in greeting to the king, then went over to Yūi. "So," she said, "stand up and let me have a look at you."

He obeyed, turning as she directed.

"He'll do," Kendappa said, looking Yūi over with a critical eye. "Your childhood wardrobe becomes him, cousin. I confess I am surprised, considering your differences in coloring, but I see your body servants are capable of choosing things that flatter him. Naturally, the style is not of the latest, but the quality of materials and workmanship more than make up for that."

King Ashura said, "Not all of us have your discernment or your taste for fashion."

"I'm aware that you are hopeless," she replied tartly. "That's why you have me and an army of personal servants, to make certain you don't embarrass the country. I have higher hopes for Fai." She looked back at Yūi and tapped her chin. "I believe he is naturally of slender frame, but still it makes no sense to outfit him with all new clothes until we've gotten him fattened up a little." Yūi stared at her, and she grinned back. "You're far too skinny," she added, "but our cooks will take care of that in no time."

Before Yūi could stammer out an apology for being too thin, the king reproved her, "Gently, Kendappa, gently. He's not up to your teasing. Give him some time. Besides, I didn't ask you here to critique Fai's clothes."

"No? But you can't be trusted with that task."

The king ignored that. "I wanted to discuss Fai's education."

"My education? I'll be taking lessons?" Yūi asked. The king had mentioned this a little earlier, when he'd asked Yūi all those questions about how well he could read and such, but Yūi had been preoccupied with breakfast and hadn't considered what was intended. Now his eyes widened as it became clear to him that he was to be formally educated, just like a prince or noble in his old world.

He wasn't a prince, though, not anymore. He and Fai had been stripped of their status when they'd been imprisoned. But yesterday King Ashura had introduced him as though he were still a prince. Could one king restore what another had taken away?

"Naturally, you'll have lessons," the king said. "To start, you'll need beginning instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, and art, particularly drawing. Those subjects are all of critical importance to the study of magic, among other things you will encounter in daily life. You'll also need to learn court protocol, oh, and some geography, history, and current events so you can understand Seresu better. Everything else can wait a while." To Lady Kendappa, he said, "Please arrange for tutors, cousin. I'd like him to get started as soon as reasonably possible."

"Of course," Lady Kendappa immediately agreed. "You will be handling the magic lessons, I presume?"

"Yes. I'll also engage Suhail's help. He taught me well enough, when he wasn't sputtering incoherently with outrage or befuddlement. Fai should be quite the special treat for him."

While Lady Kendappa laughed, the king turned back to Yūi. "I know all this planning must seem heartless to you at such a time, but it is necessary. Also, it is often a good thing to keep busy during mourning." He sighed and said sadly, "Work helps to distract the mind while one is grieving for a significant loss."

From his expression, King Ashura spoke from experience. Yūi said softly, "It's—it's okay. At least there will be something for me to do." He didn't really know what to expect or how his days would be organized—it had been a long time since he'd had lessons of any kind—but he was looking forward to learning to use his magic. From the way the king and his cousin talked, it would be fun. Yūi knew he should feel guilty for being happy about that, but just this once he wouldn't let himself sink into sorrow and depression.

"Idleness is the last thing you need to worry about," the king said with a wry smile. "You should instead be wondering when you'll have a spare moment to breathe."


	10. Chapter 10

Before Yūi could respond to that startling pronouncement, there was a knock at the main door. A high-ranking manservant came in and bowed to the king, presenting him with a wax-sealed note. "From Lord Vainamoinen, Your Majesty."

King Ashura took the missive, broke the seal, and read. His face became a mask of utter placidity. "The council expresses its wish to meet with me—at my convenience, of course," he said to Lady Kendappa.

"I did tell you they had agreed to wait until today," she said.

"Yes, you did. This note is carefully casual, almost conversational in style. I suppose that is a message in itself from Vainamoinen that all will be easily forgiven, if not forgotten." The king addressed the servant. "Inform Lord Vainamoinen that it suits my convenience to meet immediately in the private council chambers."

The servant bowed again and left.

"Why the hurry?" Lady Kendappa asked. "They no longer consider the matter to be of any great urgency."

"I'd prefer to get it over and done with," the king responded. "Also, I'd like to dispense with that extra escort I have acquired," he added with a significant look at his cousin. "I am aware that they are still lurking out in the hall. To their credit, these guards seem to be more discreet than the group you and Vainamoinen assigned yesterday."

She smiled. "Yesterday we thought them necessary. Today is another matter entirely. I do not think you will have any problems with your council. I spoke with Vainamoinen last night, and we both agree that the situation is markedly different now."

"Good. I believe you'll find Suhail is of the same opinion, although for his own, unique reasons. In any case, the wizards' supervision I can tolerate, but I'd rather not have those guards around."

Yūi didn't know what they were talking about, but he suspected it had something to do with how the people here had been mad at King Ashura yesterday. It sounded like they weren't mad at him anymore, at least from what the king and Lady Kendappa were saying. That was good. Yūi couldn't shake the feeling that something very bad had almost happened yesterday, and that was why everyone had been so upset. He didn't know what the bad thing was, but it had obviously been important.

King Ashura got up from the breakfast table. "Since I'm rushing the noble councilors far more than they probably anticipated, I suppose I'd better bestir myself, as well." He gave Lady Kendappa and Yūi a small bow. "I will see you soon," he promised, and headed out.

Yūi stared forlornly after him, even after the door closed behind him. Without the king's presence, he felt lost and terribly alone. Lady Kendappa was being nice to him, but he couldn't forget how sometimes she spoke so harshly.

The king had called it teasing and hadn't thought much of it, but Yūi wasn't sure. He thought she really meant the things she said, even if she used a playful tone and light words to convey her intent.

No one had ever teased Yūi in a kindly or friendly way before. He only associated it with cruelty, and felt fresh stirrings of fear. How would Lady Kendappa behave toward him, now that King Ashura wasn't here to curb her? There seemed to be a hard core inside her, beneath her refined manner and elegant façade. But Yūi had sensed that in the king, too, and yet he was kind.

"Child, don't look so concerned. The king will be fine, I assure you," Lady Kendappa said to him.

Yūi tore his gaze away from the door, and turned to face the king's cousin. She still sounded nice, so maybe things would be all right. "Everyone was so mad at him yesterday," Yūi said, twining his fingers around and around. "Are they still mad?"

"They weren't angry, Fai. They were only very, very worried. He left abruptly, without telling anyone, and nobody knew if he was even still al—" She stopped, looking strangely uncertain, then backtracked and went on, "...nobody knew when he was coming back. It's not a good thing for the king to just disappear like that, even for a single day."

"Oh." Yūi thought it was his fault the king was in trouble, although Lady Kendappa hadn't said so. The king had left his world to find Yūi. Was that the bad thing that had happened? He continued to wring his hands together. "It's because of me, isn't it?"

"On the contrary, he did this to himself. You're the reason everyone has calmed down. Your presence here is a great blessing for us all."

Yūi stared at her in shock. A blessing? He was a blessing here? No one had ever called him a blessing before. He and Fai had been nothing but a curse to Valeria. He didn't understand why his just being here meant everyone had calmed down, and he had no idea how to react to Lady Kendappa's bewildering statements.

She mistook his expression and said more gently, "Truly, you needn't worry about him. The council only wants reassurances. I imagine he'll have them wrapped around his little finger in the space of an hour. He's good at that." Lady Kendappa shook her head and added with a quirk of her lips, "Ashura always gets his own way."

She made an imperious gesture, and servants suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere. Yūi was surprised to see them; they had somehow made themselves so unobtrusive that he had forgotten they were even still in the room. "Clear that away," she ordered, gesturing at the abandoned breakfast table. "Then be about your regular duties. Lord Fai and I will remain here for now. You there," she beckoned a maidservant, "fetch me a halatafl set."

"Lady Kendappa?" Yūi asked uncertainly in the midst of all the new activity.

She smiled at him. "Come, let's sit by the fire, Fai." She waited for him to take the enormous armchair opposite hers. The maidservant returned and set up a small table, placing upon it an intricately carved wooden board with peg markers, two of red jasper and a large number made of clear crystal.

"You can have the clear pieces," Lady Kendappa said. "I'll take the red."

"What...what is this?" Yūi asked.

"The beginning of your education," she said. "This is a game called halatafl, the fox game. It's a favorite of the court's, and you'll be expected to know how to play as well. The common folk play a simplified version called Fox and Geese."

"A game?"

"This game will teach you strategy. Also, keep in mind that you are going to be a magnet for attention. You must always, always remember that the court is a quagmire of intrigue and manipulation, disguised by these kinds of seemingly frivolous pursuits," she lectured. "You need to be able to play games such as this easily, so you can focus on what is really being said around you without distraction. You don't want to be tricked into confirming rumors or truths, or agreeing to any unfortunate requests."

Yūi gaped at her, dismayed. He was going to be that important to people? It was hard to believe.

Lady Kendappa smiled at his wide-eyed expression and gentled her tone. "You needn't worry about your political situation just yet. Ashura will protect you from all that until you're ready to handle it. For now, just think of this as a fun game and a good way to pass the time until he returns."

Yūi nodded wordlessly.

She said, "Now, my two red pegs are the foxes. Your twenty crystal ones are the sheep." She proceeded to explain the complex rules, and then the game got underway. It was a lot to take in, but Yūi had a quick mind and grasped the basic gameplay easily enough. The strategy took more thought, and he wasn't so good at that. Lady Kendappa guided him along and offered suggestions. After a while, Yūi decided the game was fun, just as she'd said, and time passed quickly.

When the king returned, Yūi and Lady Kendappa had started their third game. Yūi didn't even notice the king's arrival, he was so engrossed. He had yet to beat Lady Kendappa, even though he had twenty sheep to her two foxes. He had come close in the last game, though, and thought he had a chance this time.

It was Lady Kendappa who looked up. "Cousin," she greeted cheerfully, but then her face fell. "Cousin, what is wrong?"

Yūi also turned away from the game to look at the king, and caught his breath. King Ashura's expression was somber and remote.

Lady Kendappa asked carefully, "How did the council meeting go?"

"It went well enough," the king said. "I made one concession to keep the peace, but it was nothing I didn't expect."

"Monitoring by the wizards?"

"Yes. It won't last very long, probably no more than a week or two."

"And your escort?"

"Already gone."

Lady Kendappa frowned. "Then you have all that you wanted. So what is amiss?"

The king's eyes went to Yūi's. "Fai, I have received word that your brother's body is ready now. What do you desire?"

All the pleasure Yūi had felt while playing halatafl with Lady Kendappa fled, replaced with such overwhelming guilt he could scarcely breathe. How could he have had fun when he should have been thinking about Fai?

His whole body slumped. There was something deeply wrong with him, he knew. There must be. He couldn't even mourn properly. But how could he, when he didn't believe that Fai would stay dead forever? When he had the promise that it was possible to save his twin, to undo his death?

He only had to betray a group of strangers, possibly murder one or more of them, people he wouldn't even meet until far in the future. What were their lives compared to his brother's?

He truly was a miserable, unworthy creature, and would become a terrible monster one day. He was unfit to live.

"Can—can I see him?" he stammered, holding back tears.

"Of course. I'll take you to him," the king said. He was carrying a small casket, beautifully carved and enameled, which he took to a table and opened. Yūi got a brief glimpse of a crystalline glimmer and sensed a strange, enticing power, then the king turned back and said, "Let us go, Fai."

They returned to the shrine beneath the castle. In its center, by the sacred pool, Fai's body lay reposed on a spread of figured white silk. Yūi went to stand beside him, and gazed down, marveling at the change in his brother's appearance. The king's healing mages were indeed amazing.

Fai looked perfect. His body bore no injuries, his skull was again round, his face whole and with closed eyes. His skin was completely unmarked and even held a slight, lifelike blush, as though his heart still beat and pumped blood. Although he was gaunt and pinched—Yūi assumed that nothing could be done about that—he was clean, with no trace of blood or filth on him, and his hair had been brushed so that it shone like gold. Like Yūi, he was clothed as a prince.

He looked like he was only asleep, not dead.

The king stood a little ways back. "Do you still want to keep him preserved?" he asked, very quietly.

Surely, surely, Fai could be easily resurrected now, with his body in such perfect condition, almost living condition. Yūi kept expecting him to take a breath, to open his eyes...

"Yes..." Yūi said slowly. "Yes, I want to keep him preserved."

"Very well." There was something in the king's voice that made Yūi turn and look at him, but King Ashura's face was closed and revealed nothing of his thoughts. He moved forward, lifted his arms and began to sing a haunting, melodic chant. Strange, magical characters appeared in the air and gathered around Fai's body.

Yūi felt a breeze whisper through the shrine as its iridescent magic danced with the king's. Luminous, feathery swirls twined together and spun away, sparkling, rising and falling, shaped by and somehow shaping the king's song. Yūi had seen the shrine's magic move in accord with the king's before, when they'd been here yesterday. It wasn't like when Yūi had gripped the magic and twisted it all out of shape with his terror. Instead, it seemed to wrap gently around the king, as though it were caressing him, as though it loved him and wanted to protect him. Yūi remembered that King Ashura had said he belonged to the shrine, and thought perhaps that was truer than anyone knew.

Then the magic symbols that cloaked Fai rippled and changed. Before Yūi's eyes, his brother's body became encased in sparkling crystal, so perfect and clear it might have been hardened water. The crystal lifted into the air, shifted, and sank into the depths of the pool. When it had settled, the king lowered his arms and stopped his mournful singing. The dancing magic slowed until it again drifted in clouds, its purpose fulfilled.

"Why—why there?" Yūi asked. He moved onto one of the short walkways that allowed access over the pool's surface and gazed down into the shimmering blue depths.

"The sacred pool's water is purer than anything else in this world," the king answered. "It is so pure that it resists all change, even that of life itself. It will sustain and enhance the magic that arrests decay, for even decay is a part of life and change. It will help to preserve your brother."

Yūi breathed deeply, looking down at Fai with terrible, crushing grief. Grief for Fai, grief for himself, and grief for the future. Would Fai ever forgive Yūi for what he had done, and what he would someday do?

"Is there anything else you would like done?" the king asked him.

Yūi decided to leave his hair with Fai, and the king surprised him with a fluorite egg of startling power that would also go with Fai. It was the magic crystal Yūi had noticed earlier in the king's chambers. After that, the king surprised Yūi again, by gifting him with a special name and full citizenship in the country and the promise of protection, and then by briefly speaking of his request, which he still didn't explain.

And the king hugged Yūi, and there was something so sad and desperate in it that Yūi almost cried. It was so much like his own grief and his guilt and his desperation to save Fai. The feelings that rushed through Yūi made everything important so clear.

Yūi swore then that he would redeem himself, purge his guilt, and save Fai, no matter what it took. He would undo the awful results of his wish to escape, that terrible mistake he had made back in the prison pit with that horrible sorcerer. He would do whatever he had to do to save Fai. He might sometimes want to die, but he couldn't let himself die; he had to keep living to save Fai.

Everything was for Fai.

When they returned to the king's chambers, Lady Kendappa had gone. That suited Yūi perfectly, because he suddenly felt tears running down his cheeks, and before he knew it he was sobbing as though the world had come to an end.

For him, it had.


	11. Chapter 11: Part II: Rumors

**Part II: Rumors**

Yūi couldn't stop crying for a week. He tried, though, and sometimes succeeded for periods of time as long as a few hours, but then another fit would take him and he would go hide in a corner to weep.

The king and Lady Kendappa took turns keeping watch over him, and both told him it was all right, it was only natural that he should mourn for his brother, but he knew they were wrong. There was no reason to grieve; Fai was coming back someday. The sorcerer had promised, as long as Yūi did as he wished. And when Yūi thought about what he had agreed to do for that sorcerer, and the lies he had to live so he could accomplish his purpose, fresh tears came and he was again wracked with sobs.

No mention was made of him moving to his own suite while he was so bereaved. Yūi continued to live in the king's chambers, and he couldn't decide if he was grateful or dismayed about that. On the one hand, he wanted to hide himself away, for he didn't believe he deserved any kindness, and feared revealing too much about himself in a fit of tears or during a nightmare. On the other, he was even more afraid of being all alone and desperately wanted company, the king's especially. The king had saved him, had brought him and Fai out of the prison pit and cared for them both as they each required. Yūi couldn't bear to part from the king, not yet.

He knew that someday he would, though, and that also made him cry.

It seemed like everything made him cry.

He knew he was being a great inconvenience to everyone around him. Back home, he would have been scolded for his behavior or even punished. Here, they merely accommodated him in ways that bewildered him, but that also warmed and comforted him.

The king was reduced to sleeping on a cot by the fire in his main room, as he had given Yūi his bedchamber. Yūi knew where the king slept, because on the second night he'd awakened from a nightmare about Fai and gone looking for the king. That cot couldn't have been very comfortable, for King Ashura had been tossing and turning and muttering in his sleep. Yūi had watched him for a while, staying silent as he was unwilling to disturb the king further, then slipped back into the bedchamber when he could stand to be alone again.

It became something of a routine for Yūi, to jolt awake from a nightmare and then go watch King Ashura sleep. Or sometimes, when Yūi woke screaming and unable to break free of the horror, for the king to come and sit with him until he fell asleep again.

Lady Kendappa kept Yūi company during the mornings and early afternoons, while King Ashura was off doing whatever kings did during the daylight hours. Running the country, Yūi supposed, not knowing what that entailed. Yūi knew he was keeping Lady Kendappa from whatever she was supposed to be doing, as well. There was a constant parade of noble ladies and gentlemen and upper-ranking servants in and out who needed to speak with her. The king had said she ran the royal household. That was obviously a large, important job.

Yūi was still a little afraid of her, even though she didn't act like she minded staying with him. She continued to teach him halatafl in between visits from all those people, and engaged him in light conversation, and stayed quietly by the fire whenever he needed to go hide in the bedchamber or the king's private library to cry again.

When the king returned in the afternoon, the three of them took a meal. The king and his cousin would work on perfecting Yūi's table manners. When they had finished eating, Lady Kendappa would leave them. King Ashura would then retrieve a book, and they would sit and read together. Sometimes the books were stories, and sometimes they were history. Yūi liked the stories best. The history alternated between interesting and boring—usually boring, unless it was about some famous, exciting battle—but the stories were always engaging and for a short time they allowed him to escape and sometimes even forget his past.

The king told Yūi that this was part of his education, and would have him look at the words and try to say them aloud. Although a few of the characters appeared somewhat familiar to Yūi, most did not. He found his reading skills were all but nonexistent and he could only make out the occasional word. This upset him but didn't concern the king. King Ashura said that it was because their two worlds diverged a great deal in their written languages, and also that because of Yūi's young age and his life's trials he couldn't be expected to be skilled at reading, anyway. The king was confident that with training and practice, Yūi would learn Seresu's written language.

Yūi wasn't so sure about that, but he didn't want to disappoint the king and resolved to work hard when his formal lessons started.

Like Lady Kendappa, King Ashura was patient when Yūi needed to be by himself. And when they were together, he made a point of conversing with Yūi in ways that required him to think his answers through. By the fourth day, when his thoughts were no longer so slow and dulled from grief, Yūi finally realized that this was another part of his education, that he was being taught the art of polite and clever conversation. He knew from things both the king and Lady Kendappa had said that this skill, like the ability to play certain games well, was required for life in the royal court.

Yūi knew he should have already understood about things like that. In Valeria's court, he and Fai had had to learn quickly to read other people's expressions, learn when to speak and when to stay silent, and when they did speak, to choose their words carefully so as to avoid drawing bad attention to themselves. However, those weren't skills either of them had needed while they'd been imprisoned, so it was almost like he was learning about those things all over again. But this time, he wasn't learning through scary and nerve-wracking trial and error. This time, he was being carefully taught in private. It was a lot nicer this way.

During this time, he was also examined by physicians and healing mages, for the king was worried about his extreme thinness, and that his previous mistreatment might cause some long-term physical problems. The doctors declared Yūi healthy aside from severe malnutrition and some accompanying muscle deterioration. A good, steady diet, light exercise, and decent rest, they assured King Ashura, would correct the young lord's depleted state.

There was a gleam of worry and mistrust in the king's eyes when they made that pronouncement that Yūi didn't comprehend. He felt fine, the physicians said he was fine, so why was the king worried? Later, when he asked Lady Kendappa about it, she looked sad. "They've been wrong before," she told him quietly, "and that is what the king fears."

He still didn't really understand. He was curious about why King Ashura didn't fully trust his own physicians, but he didn't know what questions to ask, or even if it was a good idea to ask, so he kept quiet.

Lady Kendappa mistook his silence. She added in a comforting tone, "I've checked you myself, so I know they are correct. Ashura has done so as well, and he also knows you are fine, despite his worries. You needn't fear any health issues, Fai, as long as you keep eating properly and take care of yourself."

Yūi resolved that he would, no matter what, if it might reassure the king.

So passed Yūi's first week in Seresu.


	12. Chapter 12

During Yūi's second week, he started feeling more in control of himself. He still had crying fits, but they were fewer and came farther apart, and didn't last as long. He certainly felt better physically. He was at last able to eat solid food again, and enjoyed every bite, despite the guilt that stabbed at him for taking any pleasure, however minor, in his new life. He felt stronger, too.

Yūi grew more comfortable with his new name, the name he himself had taken on. It was still a little strange to be called by his brother's name, but now Yūi recognized it without hesitation. He no longer required a moment to remember that the "Fai" people were addressing was himself. Likewise, his title. He'd once had a title, very long ago, so that was easier to respond to than his brother's name. He still didn't think of himself as "Fai" and especially not "Lord Fai," though. But he thought that maybe that would change, too, given enough time.

He also got more accustomed to his nightmares, even though their range had widened. Instead of only being about the prison pit or Fai's death, they now included his mother's suicide, his father's death, and the Valerian ruler's accusations and ugly suicide. Sometimes those events became blended into twisted, phantasmagoric horrors, and sometimes they stayed isolated when they tormented him. But always they returned in one form or another, and sometimes they tangled up Yūi's present with his past.

Once, in a nightmare of horror and insecurity, he had witnessed Fai falling from the tower, but when he knelt down to touch his brother, it was King Ashura's dead eyes and broken body that awaited him in a pool of blood. After waking, he had gone to watch King Ashura sleep, taking comfort in the steady rise and fall of the king's chest. Yūi had stayed there, just watching, for a long time that night.

However, the nights were improving a little. Yūi did his best to suppress his overwhelming need for company when a bad dream woke him in the middle of the night. It appeared to fool people into thinking he was better. It even fooled him, sometimes. When King Ashura remarked on how improved he seemed, and asked him if he felt like moving into his own rooms, he readily agreed.

He finally took over the chambers next to the king's. They were almost as large, and the king had already had them furnished. King Ashura told him he could change anything he wanted, but Yūi thought they were perfect as they were. Yūi also acquired his own servants along with the rooms, which intimidated him. However, some of them had served him before while he'd lived with the king, and all of them knew their duties so well that they didn't need much input from him. When he did want to order them to do something, he remembered how the king and Lady Kendappa had managed their servants, and tried to emulate their behavior.

He didn't like being alone, though, and at first had worried about moving out of the king's chambers. All his life, he'd had Fai. Even when he and Fai had been imprisoned, he had always known his twin was up in the tower, and he wasn't really alone. But having his own rooms wasn't bad at all. He had some privacy when he cried, and he wasn't inconveniencing the king anymore. He also knew the king was right next door, and would come when Yūi needed him. There were always sentries in the corridors, and servants on call, and Lady Kendappa at the far end of the wing, so even now, even without Fai, he still was never really alone.

Gradually, he settled in. He'd lived in similar style before, long ago, and much of his new life seemed familiar. The parts that were different, he assumed, were due to different customs between the two worlds, and some others to him being a little older. Back then, he'd been too young to have his own rooms. He'd lived with Fai and his mother, and then, after her death, with other female caretakers.

Then one day, around dinnertime, the king came to him and asked him if he thought he could start making public appearances.

Yūi thought that over. "I... I guess so," he said. "When?"

"I was thinking now," the king replied.

"Now?"

"We've been reclusive for too long, Fai," King Ashura said. "Everyone understands, but we really should start eating with the rest of the household in the Great Hall. It will be good practice for you, and allow you to get familiar with being around the court in a routine way before you have to face a really large gathering."

Yūi remembered how many people had come to the shrine when he and King Ashura had come back to Seresu. Yet what the king was saying implied there would be many more coming to court. "What do you mean, a large gathering?"

"Right now the court is fairly small and thin of company. Most people stay on their own lands during the harshest winter months. Those here now either reside here permanently or semi-permanently, or have made the trip here to petition for something. It's a good time for you to get accustomed to public appearances, before the weather eases. There will be a great crowd arriving when the Sunbirth Festival gets underway—"

"A festival?" That sounded interesting, and distracted Yūi from the frightening prospect of facing so many people. "What kind of festival?"

"Sunbirth celebrates the end of winter and marks the first day of spring. It's the most important holiday of the year, and lasts a full nine days. I'm afraid it includes a rather serious ceremony to bless the land before the spring planting, but there will also be feasting, games, dancing... Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that. We'll need to engage a dance instructor for you, too."

It all sounded like great fun. Even if he did have to learn to dance.

The king continued, "Many of the nobles will bring their families to court for the festivities, so you can meet some children of your own age and class. I think you'll enjoy it."

That was like a bucket of cold water thrown onto Yūi's fledgling anticipation. He rubbed his arms against a sudden chill. Meet other children? In Valeria, other children of his own age and class had been tormentors whose parents had encouraged them to ostracize the twins of misfortune. Even though Yūi and Fai had been royal, no one had protected them from childish taunts and abuse. The servants' children had only avoided him and Fai, and so hadn't been a cause for fear, but the noble children had been actively cruel.

He must have looked distressed, for King Ashura suddenly became concerned and asked, "Fai? What is wrong? Did I say something to upset you?"

Yūi didn't want to talk about Valeria, and he didn't want King Ashura to worry, either. "No, nothing's wrong. I was just thinking about dancing. Do I really have to learn to dance?" he said, attempting to put a fake little whine in his voice.

The king gave him a doubtful glance, but didn't challenge the transparent lie. "Yes, you have to learn to dance. Now let's go to dinner."

They walked through the castle and approached the Great Hall. Inside, tables had been set up to accommodate the household's meal. At the front of the Hall, the high table was placed facing outwards on a rectangular dais. The rest were trestle tables, set at right angles to the high table and running in long lines down the Hall. On the wall behind the dais hung colorful, richly worked tapestries. The Great Hall was full of people.

From somewhere, a bellowing male voice announced them, and every head in the room turned toward them. Suddenly intimidated, Yūi edged closer to the king. King Ashura glanced down at him and took his hand, saying, "Courage, Fai." The two made their way through the crowd toward the high table amid the sea of fascinated onlookers, who bowed even while observing with thoughtful and sometimes sly looks.

The king walked the length of the Hall with serene confidence, but Yūi couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with all those people watching him so intently. And the whispers, so many hissing whispers...

"Is it true?" Yūi heard someone say.

"It must be. He lives in the royal wing..."

"My maid's sister works there, and she says..."

"The king named him Fluorite..."

"Fai Fluorite..."

King Ashura ignored it all, or at least he gave that impression. Yūi tried to follow his example, but it was hard with so many speculative eyes on him, and so many whispers following him. Especially since he had no idea what it was all about.

It really wasn't that long a walk to the high table at the head of the room, but to Yūi it seemed like it took forever. Lady Kendappa was already there and stood waiting for them on the dais. Yūi sat between her and the king, and felt a little better for having them protecting him on both sides. For once, he wasn't even a little afraid of her.

"Congratulations on surviving the gauntlet," she said to Yūi. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it in time."

"They were watching me," he said uncertainly.

"They still are. But they watch all of us, so it's of little concern."

King Ashura added, "They also watch each other, and we watch them, as well. It's the way of any court."

"Do they talk about you, too?" Yūi asked.

"All the time," King Ashura said with a slight smile. "And on rare occasions, what they say is even true. Don't fret over it, Fai. Kendappa's right; you'll become accustomed to it."

The thought of a lifetime spent being watched and gossiped about didn't sit well with Yūi, as in his experience those things meant nothing good. However, he knew there was nothing he could do about it. At least no one had seemed hostile, or said anything bad about him. They had all just seemed really curious.

Lord Vainamoinen and other high-ranking nobles Yūi didn't recognize joined them at the high table. The court wizards and lower-ranked nobles sat at tables set near the king's. Soldiers, craftsmen, and servants sat farthest away.

King Ashura introduced Yūi to everyone at the table. Yūi greeted them properly, but he feared he wouldn't remember all of their names and titles. The king murmured in his ear, "Don't worry, they don't expect you to remember everything. They'll remember you, though. Everyone here will. That's what really matters today."

Fortunately, dinner got underway. The cooks and their apprentices and assistants carried a large variety of dishes to the high table for the lords and ladies to choose from. Some Yūi recognized from his own world, but many were new to him. There were thick and clear soups, and then courses of seabird eggs and salted fish, roasted venison with lingonberry jam, and smoked mutton. Stews and pies of meats with onions and garlic and exotic spices from far distant lands. Cheese tarts, both sweet and savory. Sweet foods made with wild honey and dried fruits.

The common folk ate well also, even if their food wasn't as elaborate or varied. For them there were dishes such as cured pork, cabbage and root vegetables, cheeses, simple pottages and stews and a variety of savory pies, all washed down with ale. And everyone, high and low, ate dense, brown bread made of rye and barley, grains that would survive and even thrive in Seresu's brief growing season.

For Yūi it was like a fantasy. How many times had he dreamed of good food while he'd been imprisoned? He tried a little of everything offered, and rather wished he could try the foods the servants were eating, too. He didn't like the fish so much, but adored the venison and all the sweets. He'd thought the food wonderful while he dined privately with the king, but this was so much better just because of the variety. If there was such a wide array of delicious food now, what, he wondered, would the feasts of the Sunbirth Festival be like? He couldn't wait to find out.

The adults barely paid attention to what they were eating, which Yūi found incomprehensible. They instead focused more on conversation. Unless a remark was directed at him, Yūi wasn't expected to participate in their talk, which relieved him greatly. It allowed him to watch how they behaved and know what would be expected of him someday. He realized quickly that the king and his company were on very public display to everyone else in the Hall, and he now understood at least some of the reasons why King Ashura and Lady Kendappa spent so much time teaching him about manners and conversation.

After dinner, they returned to his rooms, where the king again read to him, and coached him to read at least a few more of the words himself.

When Yūi went to bed that night, he only felt a little guilty. Perhaps court life wouldn't be as scary as he'd thought. Everybody had been curious and had watched him closely, and gossiped about things he didn't understand, but they'd also been nice to him. Sometimes, like now, he was glad he was still alive. He felt like that more and more with every passing day. As always, though, he wished Fai had lived and was here with him, and as always, that made him feel sad.

So he did as he did every night, whispering a goodnight into the darkness and hoping that Fai heard him from wherever he was now.


	13. Chapter 13

Ashura's blood sang.

He slashed with claws of dark sorcery, reveling in the rending of flesh, in the screams of pain and terror. Hot liquid spattered him, bathing him in its glorious essence. Power and strength surged through him, ecstatic, addicting. With each tearing strike, his magic grew, every cell in his body tingling with burning vitality. He had never felt so alive, so free. He could do anything. Anything.

He wanted more. He needed more. More. Moremoremoremoremoremoremore—

He felt cold.

Cold and numb, and so very tired that he couldn't even lift his eyelids. A frigid wind swept over him, and tiny ice crystals stung his exposed face and hands. Was he outdoors? He should go inside. Only a fool would stand witlessly in the elements when one of Seresu's ice storms threatened.

A peculiar lassitude held him motionless, captive to the shroud of numbness over his thoughts. What was wrong with him? He fought to move, to reason, and yet he feared it, too.

He inhaled the freezing air. Instead of the clean scent of snow, a metallic tang assaulted his nostrils. He opened his eyes—

—And barely held back a scream of horror.

He stood in the center of some nameless village. Bodies lay strewn around him, ripped to pieces. Crimson stained the snow, defiling its white purity, the warm blood melting ice and mingling with the liquid flows to create vile, pink pools.

He turned in a circle, scanning with his eyes, reaching out with mystical senses. Death hung over everything. In the entire village, not one person still breathed.

His eyes turned downward, to the corpses at his feet. His gaze fell on his hands, and his heartbeat faltered.

His hands were covered with blood.

Shredded skin and wet strings of tissue clung to his nails. His robes and greatcoat were splattered with gore and gelatinous gobbets of flesh.

No, his mind denied. It can't be. It can't.

Wildly, he checked the nearest body, a shopkeeper's apprentice by the looks of him. He held his right hand over a collection of gashes on the young man's back.

They matched. They matched perfectly.

Another body, he needed to check another body. An elderly woman, her belly ripped open and a basket of onions spilled nearby. It was the same.

No matter which corpse he checked, it was always the same.

Shock took his senses.

He fell to his knees, holding his blood-covered hands out before him, unmindful of the snow melting beneath him and soaking into his clothes, uncaring of the impending storm, the howling wind, the sleet and ice.

He had done this.

He had murdered this village.

Ashura buried his face in his hands.

Around him, the blood ran in thin rivulets, the heat melting pathways through the snow. The trickles flowed together, combining into larger streams, which joined again, and again, and again, until a wide river of steaming crimson flooded the street.

Blood sluiced through the village, cutting a deep channel in snow and earth. Buildings collapsed under its onslaught, the debris and the corpses swept away in heated red currents. The only land remaining was the miniscule scrap of dirt where Ashura knelt.

The river of blood washed against the shore, lapping up against his knees, wetting his robes and greatcoat with gore. With each swell more of his islet dissolved. Ashura scrambled to his feet, but there was nowhere to go. His tiny refuge was dissolving out from under him, little by little, until there was only a bare hump of earth beneath his soles. Then even that crumbled away, and with a frantic cry he tumbled into the rushing blood.

The hot, vital flow surged, tossing him helplessly in time with a relentless cadence of drumbeats that pounded, pounded, pounded against his body and in his ears like the pulse of a giant heart.

The river of blood heaved rhythmically with each heartbeat, pushing forward, then sucking back, pausing in hopeless anticipation and then surging farther forward again. Again and again and again. It increased speed, faster and faster, as though the heart was driven, as though the body was straining against... against...

Against what?

Then the heartbeat fluttered and stopped.

The momentum of the final beat kept the current flowing forward for a few moments more. The river's last, dying wave washed him inside the castle, past the Great Hall, even beyond the throne room. Then the blood was slowly absorbed into floor, down into the ground, becoming one with the very earth of Seresu. Seresu drank all of it, leaving Ashura lying alone on the marble floors, battered and numb and drenched in his people's lifeblood.

Mindlessly, he staggered to his feet and started to walk. Death and destruction were everywhere. Bodies lay haphazardly in every room, every corridor. Walls were scored and scorched, columns toppled. Some rooms had been half collapsed.

He knew he'd done all of it. He'd seen it before, in dreams.

Dreams of the future.

This dream couldn't swallow him as the others did. He could stay apart from it and observe. He had no other choice, because in this dream he was beyond participation.

He gazed around at the devastation he had wrought, feeling lost and hopeless. He knew where he must go and what he must see before the dream would release him. There could be no escape until then. He moved on, journeying down age-old stairways to the heart of the mountain.

He came to the great set of double doors, used magic to open them, and entered the ancient shrine beneath the castle. With a heavy heart, he moved through innumerable rows of columns to the exact center of the shrine, the sacred pool, and he again saw his own ending.

It was all the same. Nothing had changed since the last time he'd been here. Defeated, he allowed the dream to control him, to force him to view every detail once again, to witness the ultimate outcome of his madness, to acknowledge that all his efforts to change the future would come to naught.

His bloodied body lay motionless amid the ruins, a gaping wound in his chest. He was dressed in his most formal ceremonial robes. Worn properly, they resembled a butterfly enfolded in its chrysalis, the symbol of transformation. He had only donned that very special garb twice before in his entire life.

This time in the dream, he knew why he was so attired. He had prepared for an important, transformative event. Transformative for both himself, and for Fai.

Death was the ultimate transformation. His death should have been Fai's salvation. But he had failed.

He must have planned to die here, at this time and place, and in so doing release Fai from his enthrallment to the dark sorcerer. His death should have saved Fai from the manifestation of the second curse, the curse that would swallow the world, and Fai with it.

But, instead, it seemed to Ashura that he had succeeded only in dying and nothing else. He'd dreamed this dream before; he knew he had failed in the greater task. He didn't know how it had happened, or what other events had occurred in this place, but he knew that the wrong person had killed him.

His own death held no horror for him, not with the knowledge of the path he had taken to reach this place. He felt only relief, and a sense that there might be some small shred of justice in the uncaring universe, and grief that his failure condemned his child to the malicious fate the dark sorcerer had wrought.

He again saw the group of people who accompanied a royal wizard. The royal wizard, the one-eyed wizard who wasn't quite human... This time he knew the wizard's identity. Fai.

An adult Fai, a young man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. Healthy and straight and physically adept. A master wizard. A young man who had self-confidence and the emotional health to make a life for himself. For all of that, Ashura was pleased.

But now, poor Fai was so upset and wounded, his sole eye reddened as tears streamed down his face. Terrible things had transpired here, things that had almost destroyed Fai. Ashura saw the soulless yet living body of a girl nearby, and also that the sacred pool was empty. He knew that was wrong, that Fai's twin, the true Fai, should be resting there, yet was gone. It seemed Fai had lost so very much this day.

A great rush of intermingled regret, longing, and grief swelled in Ashura. It had all been for nothing; he had wanted to save Fai, but instead his death had traumatized his child for nothing.

Fai was already so damaged by his past. And now... What had happened to his poor Fai? What would happen in his child's future, that Fai would lose one eye and become something that wasn't even human? Ashura longed to wrap his arms around Fai, hug him one last time, but he couldn't. He was dead in this dream, and only witnessed it because he was also apart from it.

He knew what would come next. Because Ashura had failed, Fai's second curse would manifest.

Why, he wondered in heart-broken despair, was he being forced to witness this again? How many times would he see this horror in dreams before it finally came to pass?

Alien magic erupted from Fai's body, a bizarre scrollwork of energies: loops and whorls of power that held terrible beauty and the dark sorcerer's malign purpose. The stark patterns of power expanded, threading throughout the entirety of the castle, reaching every hidden corner, filling every nook and cranny. Poor Fai couldn't stop it, though he tried. Oh, how he tried. Ashura reached out to him, but there was nothing he could do for Fai now. His own failure, his mismanaged death, had brought this nightmare into existence.

The relentless magic flowed outward, throughout the whole of Seresu.

The curse fulfilled its purpose with a blind, inexorable flood of malignancy. It even reached for him, mindlessly intent on capturing all objects, all beings, all things that existed in this world. Not even a dreamer was safe.

Ashura stayed put and closed his eyes. Let him vanish forever now, with his country and his child. Let it end. He knew the alien magic was surging ever outwards and engulfing everything in its path. The castle, the mountains, and the wide expanses of snowy lands—all were being taken. And when the curse had consumed everything, leaving no tiny patch of earth, no piece of sky, not even the merest crystal of ice untouched, the magic—the trap—closed.

It collapsed in upon itself, shrinking down, swallowing Ashura's world into nothingness.

It took his dead body with it, yet it didn't take his dreaming mind.

He screamed.


	14. Chapter 14

Yūi started awake. His eyes wide, he rubbed his arms and stared into darkness, feeling pain and terror and unbearable despair. Overwhelming horror and helplessness. Not his own... For a change, it wasn't his own. Someone else's... Someone magical, someone near. Someone important to him. Who? Who?

He cast his mind about, instinctively searching blindly with untrained senses he didn't yet understand. He didn't need precision or honed skill, though. This sensation was strong, so very strong. Surely no one could miss it. With a gasp, he caught the feel of familiar magic entangled in a whirlwind of anguish.

The king! Something was hurting King Ashura!

Yūi jumped out of bed and bolted from his bedroom, not bothering with a robe or slippers or even a candle. He had to get to the king as fast as he could. He couldn't lose King Ashura, not so soon after... After...

No, not like his brother. Not again... Not here, too...

He was almost in tears as he ran out of his suite into the well-lit hallway. He rushed to the king's chambers next to his. Two night sentries had the duty watch in the corridor. One leaned against the wall by the king's door, giving the closed portal a resigned look. The other ambled along the length of the hallway, as though nothing important were happening. They didn't even look concerned. Didn't they understand? Didn't they know something bad was happening to the king?

At the sight of him, they hurried over, blocking his way.

"Let me past!" Yūi cried. The guards didn't normally stop him like this. What was wrong with them? "Let me in!"

"Lord Fai? What are you doing here?" one of the startled guards asked. "What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

"No, no, I'm fine, but—"

The other guard said, "If you're fine, you should be in bed. King Ashura won't be happy if you don't get your rest."

"You don't understand. Something's happening to him!" Yūi yelled at them.

The first guard knelt down. "Lord Fai, please calm down. Nothing's happening to him. All is well."

Giving lie to the guard's words, a strangled cry erupted from behind the closed door.

"King Ashura!" Yūi screamed. "I told you! Let me though!"

The guards looked warily at the door, then at each other. The first said, "The walls are solid stone. How did he know?"

The second said, "Must be a wizard thing."

The first guard still knelt before Yūi. "Lord Fai..." He exhaled.

The second said, "My lord, nothing is wrong with the king."

"How can you say that?" Yūi asked wildly. "He just screamed."

"The king is afflicted with nightmares..."

"Lots of nightmares," the first said with another sigh.

"He's slept better since you've come, but..."

Not caring about reasons, Yūi interrupted him, begging, "Please, please let me through..."

"You don't understand. We won't be welcome."

That alarmed Yūi even more. Not welcome? What were they talking about? The king always made Yūi welcome, no matter what. Even in the middle of the night, after one of those horrible nightmares about Fai and the pit, or his mother's suicide... Why shouldn't King Ashura want to see Yūi now? He needed Yūi... "What do you mean?"

The first guard said, "As long as he's not blowing anything up—"

"Wait," the second guard said, looking thoughtfully at Yūi. "You and I won't be welcome, but Lord Fai might."

The first guard glanced up at his partner. "You think the rumors are true?"

The second nodded. "I do. I don't think he'll... Well, if Lord Fai is distressed about it, he might be more patient. It'll give him something else to think about."

The first stood up. "Yes, you're right. Might even make the remainder of the night a little more restful. At least he won't go prowling all over the castle." He opened the door to the king's chambers. Inside, all was dark and silent. "Go ahead, Lord Fai."

Yūi rushed in.


	15. Chapter 15

Ashura sat up in his bed, shuddering in the darkness. Tears slid down his cheeks, and he made no effort to stop them.

Why did he have to dream? Why couldn't he have a respite, just for a little while? A month or two, that was all he asked. But dreams came anyway.

Dreams of the future; dreams of utter failure.

His curse would drive him mad, and he would murder his own country.

He would die as he desired, but not soon enough.

And when he died, it would be by the wrong hand.

He hadn't been specific enough with the Witch of Dimensions, he knew. He had only asked for a means to his death, and she had only promised Fai would provide that means. She had not guaranteed that it would be Seresu's salvation, nor that Fai himself would deal the fatal blow. Ashura hadn't foreseen who would kill him, but obviously his executioner would be one of the people who would accompany Fai to the shrine on that fateful day seventeen years hence. As long as he kept on his current path, Ashura would fail to save Fai from the dark sorcerer's second curse, and lose not only his life and his child, but his whole world.

He had recognized all this at the moment he had physically met Fai and taken him from the pit, and yet...and yet he had hoped there might be a chance, however slim...

But he had been wrong.

Despite his best efforts, he would fail at everything. Just as he had failed in the past.

He always failed when it really mattered.

He got up, and put on a robe and slippers. He didn't bother creating a magelight or rekindling the fire. The cold darkness was good enough for the likes of him. He was a blind, deluded fool, and someday a monster. He deserved nothing but the darkness.

"King Ashura?" a child's voice said tentatively from somewhere outside the bedchamber. "Are...are you all right?"

"Fai?" Ashura said with confusion. What was Fai doing here? He sounded upset. Ashura did his best to shake off the lingering effects of his latest dreams and quickly cast a magelight so he could see. He wiped away his tears and went out into the common area.

Fai stood just inside the dark room. He was dressed only in his nightclothes, barefoot and without even a robe for warmth. In the magelight's steady illumination, his eyes looked suspiciously bright. Ashura had been correct, Fai was upset about something. Perhaps he'd had another of his nightmares. Ashura knew Fai still had them almost every night, even though the child tried to hide it.

He noticed Fai shivering. "Fai, you're not dressed. Are you cold?" Ashura asked. Without waiting for a response, he gestured at the fireplace, and cheery flames burst to life. He created a few more magelights and set them in the wall sconces to light the room.

He turned back to his charge. "Fai, what's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

Fai stared at him. "Are you all right?" he repeated tremulously. "I thought... I felt... Are you all right?"

This wasn't Fai's usual reaction to a nightmare. Something was terribly wrong here. "Fai, I'm fine."

"You're not. I felt it. You were hurting, and so afraid... I know what that's like..."

Ashura caught his breath. His dreams? Had Fai somehow sensed them? How had he done it?

He gave himself a mental shake. Fai had more raw magical power than anyone in the entire world. There was no telling what Fai could do. "Fai, I'm all right," he repeated. "Wait here a moment."

He retreated to his bedchamber and collected a robe and pair of slippers. When he returned, Fai was still just standing there, waiting for him. The child hadn't even moved to the fire to warm himself. Ashura shook his head.

"Here, you're freezing," he said, wrapping Fai in the clothes. They were far too large for the boy, even if he hadn't still been gaunt and hollow from his long deprivation. His shorn hair only emphasized his unhealthy thinness. Ashura hoped he would fill out soon. There were signs of improvement; his skin, at least, had plumped out and no longer resembled crinkled paper. "Come over by the fire, child."

He led Fai to the fireplace where they both could warm up, and sat down on the floor before Fai. Some simple explanations were in order to reassure the boy. "Fai, I'm all right. It was just a nightmare." He looked into the flames. "I often have nightmares. You shouldn't let them trouble you."

"All that was only from a nightmare?" Fai breathed. "It felt so real, like something was tearing you apart... I thought you were dying..."

"My nightmares are very vivid," Ashura said wryly. He couldn't very well explain to Fai that they weren't ordinary dreams.

"The guards said it was only a nightmare, but I didn't believe them. It was nothing like mine. I heard you scream..."

"Fai, it was just a bad dream." Ashura gently rubbed Fai's arm. "I'm sorry you picked up on it. Did you see any of it?" He hoped not. Fai wasn't afraid of him, so Ashura didn't think the child had seen the images of him covered in blood, ripping people to shreds, and surrounded by mangled corpses. Likewise, Fai seemed too calm to have seen the river of blood or the vision of Ashura's body, or the last part, when Fai's second curse had run loose. That was just as well. Poor Fai had already seen far too much horror in his young life.

"No, I just felt your emotions, mixed up with your magic..."

"So I was broadcasting my feelings?" This was a complication Ashura had never considered before. No one else had ever mentioned it, but Fai was very powerful, and his rooms were closest to Ashura's. Kendappa's were the next nearest, and they were at the far end of the corridor.

It had probably been the last dream that Fai had detected, the dream of Seresu's destruction. Ashura had had other dreams these past two weeks, dreams of his coming madness, and to the best of his knowledge they hadn't troubled Fai. But that last one...

The only other time he'd had that dream, he'd woken raving incoherently, his magic out of control, and had destroyed his bedchamber. He supposed he was fortunate nothing and no one aside from Fai had been affected this time—since his room was intact and he wasn't inundated with upset wizards, courtiers, and guards, he assumed that no one else had been alarmed by his distress—but he didn't want Fai to learn of that particular future. Not when Ashura still hoped to find a way to prevent it.

The despair and utter certainty that nothing he could do would prevent it still lingered in his soul like a dread miasma, but he pushed it aside and considered the problem at hand. Fai's current issues were more pressing than Ashura's own well-deserved death and its unthinkable consequence, neither of which would come to pass for seventeen years.

He should have considered the potential ramifications before he had let Fai choose his own rooms. How could he have known, though? At the time, he'd felt a certain parental pleasure that the boy had wanted to be near him, but now it didn't seem like such a good idea. The proximity no doubt aggravated the problem; perhaps some physical distance would lessen the chances of Fai sensing the psychic leakage from Ashura's dreams. Fai had enough trouble with his own nightmares; he didn't need the burden of Ashura's adding to his difficulties.

Ashura said slowly, "Maybe you shouldn't sleep too close to me. Why don't we move you—?"

"No!" Fai interrupted, looking frantic. "Don't make me leave—please don't make me go away!"

"What? No, Fai, no one's going to make you go anywhere." Was Fai still worried about that? Ashura put both hands on the boy's shoulders. Even after two weeks of decent food and treatment, Fai still felt so terribly thin and fragile. "I was only going to suggest you move to the other end of the hall, down by where Kendappa lives. That way, you won't be bothered if I have a bad night."

"I'd know anyway. I felt your magic," Fai said. "Please let me stay, in case...in case your bad dreams come back..."

"Oh, Fai." Ashura enfolded the child in a gentle hug. "You can't protect me from dreams, but I appreciate the thought." He pulled away and stood up. "We'll talk about this in the morning, all right? Why don't I take you back to your own rooms now, so you can get some sleep?" He held out his hand, but Fai refused to take it.

Fai gazed at him with such a forlorn expression that Ashura's heart broke. It was as though Fai expected him to vanish at any moment. Fai's reaction made him reconsider his intention to move the child down the hall. Perhaps he could create some kind of shield around his own chambers instead, to prevent the worst of the psychic trauma his dreams provoked from leaking through to Fai.

It should generate no concerns from anyone, now that the wizards were no longer keeping close watch over his behavior. That had been the one concession Ashura had made to his council, and it had been an annoyance, but at least it was over now. Not that his people weren't still watching him; he wasn't such a fool as to assume otherwise. But they were no longer watching so closely that they'd be disturbed by some simple filtering shields, especially if he didn't make them too opaque and explained that he set them to protect Fai.

"I... I don't..." the child stammered.

Ashura considered what Fai had said, the way he had begged to stay, and how frightened he appeared. "Would you like to stay here tonight, Fai?" he asked. After all, Fai had spent his first week here. Perhaps the familiarity would help to steady him.

"Can I?" Fai breathed, looking hopeful.

Ashura smiled and went to the larger of the two chairs by the fireplace. It easily accommodated two, and he'd read to Fai in this chair before. He sat on one side and patted the open space next to him. "Come sit down, Fai."

Fai looked surprised and stared at him, just for an instant, like he didn't know if he really should. Ashura was uncertain why Fai was behaving so. Fai had sat next to Ashura on this very chair a number of times without a problem. Perhaps he was still upset about Ashura's nightmares.

Once again, Ashura felt a stab of pain at the child's behavior. Fai sometimes reacted like that to some unexpected action or physical contact; he would either jump or freeze for a tiny moment, then relax. He used to do it more often, but now, at least, the reaction came only rarely and never lasted long. It only seemed to occur when Fai was surprised by something, but what action might trigger it was unpredictable.

Had no one ever offered this child any physical comfort when he'd been distressed? Was the reaction due to simple neglect, or to something worse? Perhaps he'd been scolded, or... No, surely not. No one would slap or otherwise abuse a frightened child for seeking comfort, would they? Fai had never mentioned such, but then, he probably never would. The child was extraordinarily close-mouthed about his past. Not for the first time, Ashura cursed Fai's kinfolk. "It's all right, Fai. Come on up."

As usual, a little reassurance was enough. Fai scrambled onto the seat. Ashura tucked the oversized robe around him like a blanket and put his arm around the child's shoulders.

"Shall we read now?" he said. "I don't think either of us is going anywhere tonight."

Fai nodded. Ashura pulled him in closer. Fai relaxed and closed his eyes. Ashura apported a storybook from the library into his hands, one he knew Fai enjoyed, and started to read aloud, keeping his voice at a steady, soothing drone.

Fai snuggled closer. He murmured sleepily, "One day, I'll be able to do healing magic. I'll fix it so you don't have bad dreams anymore."

Ashura smiled sadly. "That would be very nice, Fai."

Fai's breathing became deep and even, his body going limp with sleep.

Ashura set aside the book and sighed with an odd contentment. The child felt so warm. Ashura closed his eyes against the now familiar upwelling of intermingled pain and joy. The future looked grimmer with every passing moment, and yet he was happy for the first time in a long, long while.

Damn that Witch.

Ashura inhaled sharply and took himself to task for that unworthy thought. It wasn't her fault. He'd been lost from the very first time he'd seen the twins in his dreams. The Witch of Dimensions had merely facilitated the meeting, that was all.

Even if she did have hidden motives of her own.

Ashura dropped a quick kiss on top of the sleeping child's head and gazed into the fire. As was becoming common for him, he berated himself for a fool. His own dreams had found Fai. Not once, but twice. His own curse had demanded a cause for the retroactive effect, and had driven him to insane lengths to locate and obtain that cause to complete the circle.

That it all had been different aspects of the same thing was just another of fate's many perversities.

What would be, would be. More, it must be, and was. Ashura often felt adrift in the tangled dreams and realities of his past, present, and future. But at least he had a solid time frame now. He had seventeen years to try to find a solution that might salvage at least a little from the horrors he would one day be forced to mete out.

He regretted that he hadn't been able to claim both twins before one had died. He still wondered how things might have turned out had he done so. Maybe he could have had them both, maybe he could have found a cure for their omen of misfortune. Instead he had delayed and now one was gone.

If he hadn't delayed, if he had sought a way to take the twins out of that horrible pit sooner, Fai wouldn't now be marked by curses designed to doom both him and Ashura's world.

Ashura wondered if the Witch had known about the curses beforehand. She must have. But she hadn't warned him, and had instead reinforced destiny...

And yet, she had also only done as he had truly desired. He had made no conditions on his wish to die. In turn, she had read his heart and satisfied his real wish, his unacknowledged wish, and had used his stated wish to accomplish both that and her own ends. That had been his mistake, giving her so much latitude. But Ashura didn't feel in his heart that it had really been a mistake.

As for Fai's curses, Ashura knew exactly to whom he should assign the blame.

The dark sorcerer who had set Fai's curses was the real problem. For some unfathomable reason, he desired that bleak, blood-drenched future intensely. He had gone to extreme lengths to secure it, manipulating Ashura's prophetic dreams and placing those two curses upon Fai. Ashura could never lift those curses, even if he'd had the strength required. They were skillfully and inextricably bound to Fai's very life essence.

That sorcerer was a monster. Fai's second curse demonstrated that. It was a particularly vile and sadistic piece of work. The sheer cruelty of it left Ashura breathless. By making Ashura's death at Fai's hand the key to that curse's dissolution, the sorcerer had all but guaranteed that it would not be broken, but instead would inevitably manifest.

Fai wouldn't be able to do what was needed, not of his own free will. Ashura's own dreams had made that much quite clear. Ashura still hadn't seen the ultimate end of that last, terrible dream, but the intent was obvious enough. Fai was to be trapped and destroyed by his own power, taking Ashura's world along with him into oblivion.

But why? What was the point of such a wanton, bloodthirsty act?

Two terrifyingly powerful magicians—the Witch of Dimensions and that dark sorcerer—had evinced an interest in Fai. Knowing that, Ashura believed that Fai was the sorcerer's real target, and that Ashura and his world were merely collateral damage, expendable game pieces useful as a means to triggering Fai's second curse. But if the sorcerer wanted Fai destroyed, why go about it in such a roundabout manner? Why not simply dispose of Fai immediately, instead of placing those two curses upon him?

Whatever the sorcerer's reasons, his desire would be made manifest, for the outcome thus far was in no doubt.

Still, there was a slim chance to alter the future, if only Ashura could force Fai into the bitter act his second curse demanded. Ashura knew what was required, he knew a way to trigger Fai's first curse and focus it upon himself, thus breaking the second curse, but his mind shied away from that solution. He had thought of it before, when he'd first met Fai, but it required too much death, the death of his entire country. And even then it was uncertain. He needed another way. Surely he could find another way.

The painful times when he hadn't found a way he resolutely put from his mind.

He kissed the top of Fai's head again. "I will save you," he murmured to the child of his heart. "I will find a way."


	16. Chapter 16

Over the next few weeks, Yūi learned exactly what the king had meant when he'd said that Yūi would scarcely have time to breathe. A large number of tutors entered Yūi's life, and the promised lessons began. In the mornings he would have a lesson in reading and writing, then practice, practice, and more practice was required, all under the watchful eye of his teacher. He discovered he could memorize things easily, and learned the language runes very quickly. It made learning words simpler. On the other hand, his fledgling penmanship was shaky, blotchy, and inconsistent, and he often got ink all over his hands, but no one seemed to mind.

Then, when he was finished with that, a math lesson where he learned the symbols for numbers, systems of counting, and started working on simple sums. Then the other subjects the king had deemed necessary, although most of those lessons were only taught once or twice a week. Yūi also took the dreaded dancing lessons. Those turned out to be more enjoyable than Yūi had expected, because the physical exercise felt good and because he liked music a lot.

Free time became a rarity. Often when Yūi was idle, Lady Kendappa or even the king would send him on errands throughout the castle. These, the king explained, were to make him familiar with the layout of his new home, and to make him better known to the castle's denizens. Yūi didn't consider that he was also learning to give orders, or that the castlefolk were becoming accustomed to accepting his authority. He did notice, though, that servants and the lesser gentry bowed to him, and even the high nobles nodded respectfully. It unnerved him at first, but eventually he got used to it.

A servant always accompanied Yūi on the excursions, to help him find his way should he become lost. However, the servants were ordered to do no more, which Yūi found rather frustrating since they only shadowed him and wouldn't provide any directions until he became hopelessly confused.

His new regimen was more exhausting than he wanted to admit, and he was grateful for his comfortable bed when each day concluded. He also realized the king had been right about another thing: keeping busy and preoccupied did help with his grief. He could bury himself in his studies and not think about Fai for long stretches of time.

When he did think about Fai, though, he grew morose. In his guilt, he tried to visit his brother as often as he could, but the shrine was one of the few places in Luval Castle that he was not permitted to visit unaccompanied or accompanied only by a servant. In fact, he couldn't go to the shrine without the king himself in attendance. Yūi didn't understand that. While it was always pretty to see the shrine's magic swirl around King Ashura in welcome, it also seemed like an imposition on the king to make him visit Fai with Yūi. Yūi had seen that the king had very little free time to call his own. However, King Ashura never refused him, although he did sometimes request that they wait until some piece of business or other was completed.

At first, Yūi felt bad that he was inconveniencing the king. But over time, as he became confident of his ability to navigate the castle's labyrinthine corridors, he grew a little resentful, too, that he wasn't allowed to visit his brother in solitude. The king always stayed far back and unobtrusive, but Yūi was always aware that he wasn't alone, and he couldn't unburden his heart openly to Fai as he wished.

Finally, after Yūi became accustomed to his new routine, the longed-for magic lessons began.

This should have been one of the best parts of his new life. Yūi had been so looking forward to this part of his education. He'd wanted to learn to use his magic practically forever, even before he'd come to Seresu. When he'd been imprisoned, he'd desired it primarily as a path for him and Fai to escape, as a possible way to help the people of Valeria, and maybe, just maybe, even as a means of revenge for all the suffering he'd endured.

Those motivations were gone, but new ones had emerged. Here, he'd seen the king, his cousin, and others of the wizards and various magicians use magic casually, often without even thinking about it. Among those so gifted, servant and master alike treated it the way they would their hands or their senses, as something that was simply natural to them. Not everyone had magic here, in fact the majority did not, but enough did that it was considered a regular part of life. Through these observations, Yūi had come to understand that his magic was a defining part of him, and he hungered to use it as skillfully and easily as King Ashura did his own.

So Yūi began these lessons with a great deal of enthusiasm.

A few weeks later, his enthusiasm had waned considerably. He hadn't expected that learning magic would be so...boring.

The king and Lord Suhail alternated teaching, which was intended to give Yūi different perspectives on the same techniques. Or so they claimed. To Yūi, it all seemed the same, and he wondered if they were just as bored as he was with the lessons, and had worked out the rotation to minimize their own share of the tedium. Even learning sums was more interesting, and Yūi wasn't exactly brilliant at math.

The king took the greater part of Yūi's magical education. He started Yūi out with breathing and relaxation exercises. That was nice for five or ten minutes, but King Ashura made Yūi practice for half an hour before moving on to visualization. Yūi had an active imagination—a necessity for surviving his imprisonment with his mind intact—so in his opinion the task of making pictures in his head should present no challenge. Nevertheless, those kinds of exercises were all he did for two weeks, and during that time he learned that even though he had a vivid and creative imagination, his unruly thoughts wouldn't stay focused.

The kind of visualization the king wanted Yūi to learn turned out to be harder than he'd expected. King Ashura wanted him to be able to hold an image in his mind for long periods of time. Yūi could barely manage to visualize a flower for longer than half a minute before his mind strayed. The king patiently recommended that Yūi work with simpler images, or things that were very familiar and comfortable to him.

So Yūi worked on visualizing perfect images first of simple things like bowls and spoons, then made the jump to the familiar and comfortable, like his brother Fai, his mother's beautiful face, and the king.

His mother was the hardest. He'd been very young when she'd died, and he couldn't quite form her full visage correctly in his mind. Her face, yes. Her hair, also yes. But when he tried to put it all together, something wasn't quite right. Why was her image less clear than Fai's or the king's? Was he forgetting her? His own mother?

He worked on her image the most. He never got it perfect, but he did get very good at his visualization practice.

The third week, several more exercises were added to Yūi's curriculum. These were every bit as tedious as the earlier ones, but at least he learned why the visualization techniques were so important. It was impossible to perform these new lessons without more disciplined thoughts.

Clearing his mind should've been just like visualization, right? Only imagining nothing instead of something. That was what he had believed at first, no matter what King Ashura or Lord Suhail said to the contrary. As it turned out, they were right; that wasn't how it really worked, and he just couldn't seem to get the hang of it, which didn't help his temper at all.

Circulating internal energy also required visualization skills, but at least he could manage that. And at least it seemed a little more like something a real magician would do, unlike the rest of those aggravating exercises that the king and Lord Suhail thought were so important. They kept going on and on about how those exercises would help him learn control.

He could control himself plenty good enough, he thought with resentment any time they brought that up again. Yūi was tired of "finding his center" and similar pointless drills.

They also had him memorize the symbols the king called spell-runes, along with their meanings and magical uses. These were a different set of characters than those used for reading and writing, yet of a similar style. Yūi's gift for memorization came in handy for this task, but really, his other lessons seemed more interesting to him than this so-called magic. He could reproduce the spell-runes exactly using quill and ink with just a few days of practice, and with pretty good penmanship and a minimum of ink spillage, too. Since he'd seen King Ashura use spell-runes before, he didn't complain about these exercises. He just wished he could use the spell-runes for something more interesting than decorating scraps of paper.

To be fair, the king and Lord Suhail also gave him plenty of praise and often told him how quickly he was progressing. They both insisted that his work was superior in every way. Obviously, though, he wasn't superior enough to learn to do any real spells.

Yūi imagined himself throwing fireballs, levitating objects, and doing apportation spells, not blanking his mind or drawing pictures of spell-runes on scratch paper. That kind of work just wasn't exciting or romantic enough to fit his notions of what magic should be like.

He was bored, bored, bored. And frustrated, and impatient for the real magic lessons to begin. However, it was all clearly important to the king, so Yūi practiced faithfully, if somewhat grudgingly.

One day, he was in the king's chambers working on his latest lesson. Whenever King Ashura was teaching, they usually had the lesson in his quarters. Lord Suhail always wanted to work in Yūi's rooms, or in an isolated wall chamber somewhere. Yūi preferred the king's rooms. Lately, though, he sensed that they were muffled in a way they hadn't been before, and it had become harder for him to detect the king's magic through the walls from his own quarters. Yūi was still working up the nerve to ask what that was all about, and also if it was possible to undo it, whatever it was. He didn't like it.

He sat at a table, frowning and writing out a series of spell-runes in a predefined sequence that King Ashura had insisted he learn. Then he doodled them in a circle. Boring, as usual. He'd memorized them almost as soon as he'd looked at them. Yūi heaved a loud sigh, and kicked at the table leg.

King Ashura looked up from where he'd been reviewing and making notes on some papers. He always seemed to be looking over papers. Yūi often wondered if he had papers growing out of his hands.

"Are you finished with the lesson, Fai?" the king asked, sounding so calm, so restrained, and so overly patient that Yūi wanted to yell at him.

"Yes," Yūi said shortly.

"In that case—"

"I want to go see my brother," Yūi cut him off. He didn't really feel like seeing Fai right now, but he didn't want to be set to any more pointless tasks. So he used Fai as an excuse, and didn't feel the slightest bit guilty. Fai would understand; he would be just as bored as Yūi was.

"All right, Fai," the king said. He set down his papers and started to rise from his seat.

"Why can't I go by myself yet?" Yūi asked. "I know the way to the shrine, and I can do everything you and Lord Suhail have been teaching me."

King Ashura looked as serene and placid as ever. "You need to learn control over yourself before you can go there alone."

"I can control myself." Yūi said, feeling rebellious at hearing that again. He was tired of it.

"Your moods are still somewhat...unpredictable. When you get upset..." King Ashura seemed at a loss as to how to proceed. "Fai, do you remember what happened in the shrine when you first came to this country? How when you became distressed you affected the magic there, and the physical effects it had?"

"It only shook," Yūi muttered sullenly.

"It did more than shake." The king gave him a considering look. "I suppose it's time you understood what the real consequences are. I've kept this from you because you've been grieving and often carry unwarranted feelings of guilt, but perhaps..." King Ashura gestured. Fai's greatcoat, a pair of gloves, and fur-lined kid boots appeared on the table.

"What are those for?"

"To keep warm. I believe a trip outside is warranted."

"Outside? You mean to the castle walls?" Yūi had braved the frigid, winter weather and gone out on some of the walls before, just to see more of his adopted country. For some reason they refused to explain in detail, the servants wouldn't let him near the eastern wall. They only said that the eastern wall wasn't safe. But he had been allowed to explore other outdoor areas. From those excursions, he understood exactly why everyone preferred to stay indoors as much as possible during the frequent storms of deep winter.

"I mean outside the castle entirely," the king said with a raised eyebrow. "The weather has cleared, so it is as good a time as any."

Yūi asked, "By ourselves?"

"That is my intention, yes." The king went to a clothing trunk and extracted a greatcoat, gloves, and boots for himself.

Yūi stared after him, uncertain if this was the right thing to do. He'd wanted to get out of his lesson, but this wasn't what he'd had in mind at all, and he now regretted his fit of pique. This seemed...dangerous. He knew that normally the king didn't leave the castle without an escort. None of the nobles traveled alone. Even rich commoners followed that practice. Yūi had never given it so much as a moment's thought, as it seemed perfectly normal and reasonable to him. The same custom had been followed in Valeria, as well.

He also knew that a lot of people here were likely to get really upset if King Ashura went off by himself again. He remembered how angry they had been at the king before, when he had left Seresu to fetch Yūi. The incident had made a lasting impression on Yūi.

Despite the great magic he supposedly possessed, Yūi didn't think anyone would consider him a suitable guard for the king outside the castle. They might not get too mad if Yūi sneaked out of the castle alone, but they definitely didn't want their king to do things like that. After living in Seresu for a while, Yūi had come to agree with that attitude completely. The king was precious. Something bad might happen to him if he just went wherever he wanted without any protection.

With all this in mind, Yūi said, "Shouldn't we tell someone, so they know where we are?"

"If we tell someone, we'll have a lot of unwanted company." King Ashura's lips quirked, and there was a strange glint in his eye. He actually looked...mischievous? "It won't be for very long, Fai. Now put on your coat and boots."

"Won't it be dangerous?" Yūi persisted. "Going out alone, I mean."

"We will be perfectly safe." The king sat down to put on his own boots.

"Where? In the town?"

"Actually, no. We'll be going into the mountains. I have recently learned of a cliff with an excellent view." A shadow crossed King Ashura's face, as though the thought of that spot brought bad memories to mind. Then he looked normal again. "Do you need help with your coat, Fai?"

Yūi tried one last time, "Won't people get mad if we leave by ourselves?"

"Only if they find out," was the king's unrepentant answer.

Giving up on argument, and curious about what the king wanted him to see, Yūi quickly pulled on his boots and greatcoat. He picked up his gloves and stood waiting while the king finished getting ready. Then the king came over to him.

"Put on your gloves, Fai. It will be very cold and windy where we're going."

Yūi complied.

"Brace yourself. The change may be something of a shock." The king put one hand on Yūi's shoulder. With the other, he drew a long series of spell-runes in the air. The glowing runes swirled then encircled them both, and then a flash of light forced Yūi to clench his eyes shut. At the same time, the world seemed to revolve around him.

The spinning sensation stopped, and Yūi felt a sudden, biting cold. His feet crunched in packed ice and snow, and a frigid wind pierced him, even through the layers of his thick, warm clothes. He blinked open his eyes.

His first impression was of harsh colors: white, blue, and black. The blue, he saw, was a clear sky, lit by a cold yet blinding sun. The white was snow. Snow and ice everywhere, covering everything. In places it reflected the pale blue sky, making the snow seem even colder and purer. Dark, bare areas revealed the jagged, black stone of the mountainous ridges. It was starkly beautiful.

The colors of the royal house were white, sky blue, and black. Now Yūi understood why.

The wind blew tiny ice crystals that sparkled like airborne diamonds. Yūi glanced around, shielding his eyes from the wind with his hands. He and the king were somewhere in the mountain range, standing on a steep precipice far above the tree line. He turned and looked out over the ledge. What he saw made him gasp.

In the distance, an uprooted mountain floated in the air above its snowy brethren. Much of its surface was covered in stone walls, towers, and fortifications that protected inner buildings and keeps. A cathedral-like structure crowned the very top of the mountain and its jumble of stonework buildings. Clusters of great, translucent wings surrounded it, glowing softly even in the daylight.

"That is Luval Castle," King Ashura said. The hood of his coat was thrown back, and the wind whipped his black hair about in wild tangles. "Our home."

The reverence in the king's voice made Yūi stare at him. King Ashura was gazing out at the floating mountain and its castle with pride and veneration and...

"You love it," Yūi said with sudden understanding.

"Of course." The king smiled at him.

Yūi turned his eyes back to the floating mountain. He had never loved any place like the king loved his home. He wondered what it would be like to love a place that much, then wondered if he would eventually feel that way about his new home, too. Gazing at the view, he thought that someday he might. He already felt comfortable there, almost like he really belonged.

The surrounding mountain range framed the castle like a picture. Far below in the shadow of the floating mountain, he could see Luval Town, so small with distance that the houses and buildings seemed little more than dark smudges and toy blocks against snow and rock. The people he knew were moving about down there were so far away they might as well have been invisible. Next to the town was a large lake, and all around it were craggy rock hills and thick forests of mountain firs and pines. Several winding ribbons that he knew to be roads led up into the mountains and out through the forests.

"Do you like it, Fai?"

"I do. It's...it's amazing," Yūi said. He'd been out on the walls before, so he'd known that the castle was very high up in the mountains, but he'd never realized this... "I've never seen anything like it."

"It pleases me to hear you say that." The king inhaled deeply, taking in the cold air with the same reverence that he took in the sight of the castle and the floating mountain. "Now I will tell you why we came here, and why it is needful for you to master your emotions before you can visit your brother on your own, without my company. I could have simply explained this to you without bringing you out here, but I believed this sight would make a greater impression than mere words or even an illusion spell of it ever could."

"Yes?" Yūi said, and waited. In his awe of the incredible vision before him, he had temporarily lost his resentment about that restriction on his movements.

"Fai, the shrine sits at the heart of the mountain. I've told you before that it contains the greatest concentration of natural magic in the country. Do you remember?"

Yūi nodded. The king had told him that back when they'd first arrived in Seresu. It now seemed a long time ago. Although Yūi had been overwhelmed at the time, the shrine's magic had made an indelible mark on him that was reinforced every time he returned to that holy place.

"A long, long time ago, back when Seresu was first born, the shrine and the original castle structures were built to guard that magic." King Ashura inhaled and exhaled, blowing out a long stream of foggy air. "Fai, that very magic is what keeps the mountain aloft like that. When you first arrived, and got so upset, you somehow connected to the shrine's magic. Your emotional turmoil disrupted its normal patterns. Had that continued—"

"Oh, no," Yūi gasped, suddenly knowing exactly what the king was going to say next. "You mean, I almost...almost made the mountain fall out of the sky?"

"I'm sorry, Fai." King Ashura truly did look regretful. "But it is essential that you understand."

"I almost killed everyone in the castle? And in the town? I almost destroyed everything?" Yūi stared back at the mountain in horror. It seemed he only brought doom everywhere he went. He should never have come to this world. He should have stayed in the pit, where he couldn't hurt anyone. Surely King Ashura would send him away now. Surely that was next. How could the king tolerate such a menace in his home? Blinking back tears, Yūi hugged himself tightly, trying hard not to shake.

"Fai, stop. This is why I didn't want to tell you." The king knelt down before Yūi and put both hands on his shoulders. "You mustn't blame yourself. It was my fault, not yours. I didn't recognize what was happening soon enough."

Yūi sniffled wordlessly, not trusting himself to speak.

King Ashura looked unhappy. He stroked Yūi's hair gently, then dropped the hand back to Yūi's shoulder. "I have done ill by showing you this so soon. Forgive me, Fai."

Why was the king apologizing? Yūi was the one who had almost brought down the mountain. "N-no," he stammered. "I...I had to know... It was my fault. I understand... I..."

"Fai, it was not your fault. It was mine. You had no way of knowing what would happen. It only occurred because your power is so great, and you were never taught to control it. No one expects you to have complete mastery yet. Besides, you were able to stop it, remember?"

Yūi stared at him, hardly daring to hope.

King Ashura continued, "I did but want you to understand why learning control is so important for you, and why you cannot yet visit your brother unaccompanied." He sighed, looking oddly subdued. He dropped his hands from Yūi's shoulders and stood up. "Fai, we've been out here long enough. Let's go back now, before we are missed."


	17. Chapter 17

They materialized back in Ashura's quarters, in the same spot from which they had departed. Ashura took a quick sense of the castlefolk's temperament, and indulged in a small sigh of relief. They had not been missed.

That was just as well, because he didn't want to deal with an upset court on top of the small storm he feared he now faced.

He looked at Fai's downtrodden features and cursed himself for his lack of patience. He should have waited until Fai was more emotionally stable. The child always took things so personally and always seemed too willing to shoulder blame.

It was, Ashura believed, an unfortunate conditioning that had resulted from his Valerian upbringing, if such a dreadful childhood could ever be called an upbringing. Poor Fai had been blamed and punished so often for troubles great and small that he now believed any misfortune, no matter how simple or accidental, was somehow his responsibility.

He and his twin had certainly been ill-omened, and there was no question that the unlucky aura that had surrounded them had created problems for Valeria. However, to be blamed for every random stubbed toe or case of the sniffles, as they had been, was completely ridiculous.

Nonetheless, Fai wasn't all wrong in his assumption of blame for what had happened that day in the shrine. Just mostly wrong.

It had been Fai's wild power and his emotional turbulence that had disrupted the shrine's magic, that much was true. But there was no way Fai could have even understood what was happening. That had been Ashura's responsibility, plain and simple, and he had failed. That the whole situation had even occurred at all was Ashura's fault.

He hadn't considered the ramifications of taking Fai to the shrine in the first place. His primary concern—masking his return to Seresu—had been rather selfish, in fact. He hadn't taken Fai's power, his lack of training, or his near-hysterical emotional state into account. He also hadn't considered that adding a number of highly agitated courtiers to the mix would bring matters to a boiling point. He'd known they would upset Fai, he just hadn't realized the full repercussions.

Then he had been so focused on placating Vainamoinen and Suhail that he hadn't noticed how frantic Fai had become, or how the child had been affecting the shrine's magic until it was almost too late.

So if anyone was to blame for almost destroying the mountain, it was Ashura, not Fai.

He'd done a poor job of making that fact clear to Fai while they were in the mountains. However, now was not the time to try again. Fai was so mired in his guilty misery that he wouldn't hear a single word Ashura had to say on the subject. He truly had done ill today, but he'd been so certain Fai could finally handle the truth.

Fai's physical and mental condition had improved so much. No longer did he look like a starved scarecrow; instead he was so adorable that even Ashura's most grizzled and jaded councilors had remarked on it. Fai's increasing grumbles about his tiresome studies and the limited restraints on his movements had also pleased Ashura a great deal. The fact that Fai was willing to openly voice such complaints demonstrated a healthier sense of security and a growing self-confidence. He appeared and behaved more like any other six- or seven-year-old boy would, rather than the timid, insecure, and frightened child he had been. Ashura feared that his ill-timed revelation had harmed that progress, and possibly even reversed it.

This was one of those surprisingly frequent times when he wanted to panic.

He watched Fai silently shrug out of his greatcoat, then sit to remove his boots. An excellent idea. It postponed dealing with things for a little while. Ashura went into his bedchamber and removed his own outdoor garments. He performed a quick drying spell on them and put them away.

When he returned, Fai was standing by a chair, his coat, boots, and gloves stacked neatly on a table. His continued silence and downcast eyes were worrying, to say the least. Ashura dried Fai's clothes, then apported them back to his apartment.

He considered Fai, uncertain what to do and wondering what unfortunate thoughts might be worming their way through that blond head. "Fai? Are you all right?" Ashura asked. A stupid question with an obvious answer, but at least a response might provide Ashura with some direction.

"I'm fine," came the muttered reply.

"Do you still wish to visit your brother?" Ashura asked gently. "We can—"

"No." Fai looked up. At least his eyes were dry. "So what happens now?" he asked.

Ashura was fairly certain that Fai wasn't asking if they should continue with the magic lesson.

However, that did seem like a good option. It might reestablish a sense of normalcy for Fai, and help restore some security in his mind.

"Now? Since you don't want to go to the shrine, we shall resume today's lesson," Ashura said.

"Really?" Fai said. His face wore an expression of mingled disbelief and hope that threatened to break Ashura's heart. What had the child been thinking?

"Really," Ashura said firmly. "Did you believe you'd get to fritter away your study time just because you learned an unpleasant truth today? Life is full of unpleasant realities, Fai. You must learn to accept the ones you cannot change and move forward."

He was a fine one to talk, considering how little he wanted to accept his own realities, but this was for Fai. If the Witch of Dimensions could be believed, Fai still had a chance to have a future. Ashura was determined to do everything he could to ensure Fai got that chance.

He picked up the paper Fai had been working on before their unfortunate excursion outside the castle. The spell-runes had been perfectly reproduced in the proper order, and even drawn in a circle. Ashura raised his brows. That was, in fact, the correct configuration for this particular set of spell-runes. He hadn't specified that arrangement, so Fai must have worked it out on his own. Interesting and a bit startling, but then, Fai possessed a natural talent for magic that complemented his immense power reserves.

Ashura considered the symbols. He had given this exercise to Fai for a purpose. These were the spell-runes used to create a magelight. That spell was usually the first taught to a novice, as it was simple but flashy, as well as useful and harmless. The result of its failure tended to be nothing more than frustration on the student's part when the magelight glowed too faintly or failed to manifest at all. And when a student succeeded, they had visible proof that all their prior training—the boring mental parts that Fai so decried—served a real purpose and bore the desired fruit. That was usually enough encouragement to keep them practicing their mental disciplines.

He had planned to have Fai attempt this spell in a day or two anyway. Why not now? This task would certainly distract Fai from his brooding.

"Is it all right?" came Fai's hesitant voice. Ashura looked up from the paper. Fai was standing next to him, lacing his fingers nervously.

"It's perfect," Ashura replied. "I trust you have this memorized?"

Fai nodded.

"I was just wondering, Fai, if you could draw the spell-runes in the air with just your fingers as well as you did with quill and ink."

"In the air? I guess so."

"That's good. This is the spell to create a magelight," Ashura explained. "You draw the spell-runes in the air in the proper sequence, placing them in a circle as you have done on this paper. As you draw each spell-rune, you must channel some power into it. You will know if you are succeeding when it glows and remains steady. Would you like to try?"

"Can I?" Fai breathed. Ashura was pleased to see that Fai's expression had changed from nervous worry to cautious enthusiasm.

"Of course." He knelt down so his head was even with Fai's. "Now, it's easiest to use the hand you write with. Extend your arm, and use either your index finger, or the first two fingers of your hand, to draw the first spell-rune." He demonstrated without using any power.

Fai copied him, using just his index finger. Ashura nodded approvingly. "That's correct. Now, do you remember your exercises for visualizing, circulating, and channeling internal energy?"

"Yes."

"You will now put them to practical use. You must visualize the energy traveling down your arm and out through your fingertip as you draw the spell-rune, just like a flow of ink. Use just enough power to make the spell-rune glow. It doesn't matter for now if it is faint. You must then shut off the flow of power when you finish drawing. Like this." Ashura again demonstrated, this time drawing a single spell-rune in the air. It glowed blue and hung still for a few moments before he allowed it to fade. "You must hold it in your mind as well as in the air before you, or it will fade as this one just did. This is why you have been practicing exercises for mental concentration and discipline. You must be able to stay focused to hold multiple images steady until it becomes second nature for you."

"All right," Fai said with a little frown. He sounded doubtful.

"Try it," Ashura encouraged him. "Just draw the first spell-rune. No more."

Chewing his lip in concentration, Fai drew the glyph. It came out pale yellow, weak, and spidery, and it glowed with an irregular pulse, but it was also clearly visible. It was actually better than Ashura had expected for a first attempt.

The spell-rune only lasted a few seconds before it faded. Fai growled with frustration. Obviously, he hadn't deliberately released it.

"That was excellent, Fai," Ashura said. "Draw it again. Give it a little more power, and try to keep the flow even."

It took several more tries, but at last Fai got the hang of it. On his last attempt, the spell-rune glowed evenly. Ashura had Fai hold it for a full minute before letting it fade.

"That was very well done," Ashura praised him. "Now draw out the second." He had Fai draw each of the spell-runes individually. Fai created them all on the first try, having figured out the technique with his practice on the first one.

There was no doubt that Fai was gifted, a veritable prodigy in fact, but Ashura already knew that.

"Excellent. Now you shall actually cast the spell. First I will demonstrate. You create each spell-rune in sequence in a small circle, like so." Still kneeling beside Fai, Ashura drew a circle of red spell-runes in the air and held his open palm beneath them. He then willed them to change color to green. "The color you use for the spell-runes will determine the color of the light. It doesn't matter how the circle is oriented in relation to the rest of the room, nor that it be perfectly round." Ashura rotated the circle of spell-runes through a number of orientations. "However, if the shape is off, so will be the final magelight. Once the spell-runes are to your satisfaction, push a little burst of power into them to ignite the magelight. The amount of power determines the brightness of the light. The spell-runes will coalesce into a ball of cold light, like so." Ashura gave the spell-runes a nudge of magic, and a perfect sphere of green light formed. "It takes practice to know how much power to use, and to hold all steady. It will be fed by a small trickle of power from you, so you do not need to keep your concentration upon it once it is lit. It will not go out until you banish it." Ashura dismissed the magelight with a thought.

Fai was extraordinarily talented, and a magelight was an elementary spell, but it was a fairly complex set of tasks for any beginner to tackle. It should occupy Fai for a while before he had a full success. It should surely distract him from his misplaced guilt for a time. Ashura said, "Are you ready to try it?"

Fai's eyes were very wide. "Yes..." He drew out the word. "I think so. But that's a lot to do all together like that."

"It is," Ashura agreed. "We will break it down and go through it step by step. First, create your spell-runes in a line. Use whatever color comes easiest to you."

That alone should keep Fai's attention, as he needed to create and hold steady seven distinct spell-runes simultaneously. However, again Fai surprised Ashura. Fai managed to create all seven after just a few tries, and in a warm golden color, as well. The symbols were faint, but their forms were sharp and well defined, and they didn't waver.

Maybe Fai had actually been practicing his lessons in focus, visualization, and energy manipulation, after all, despite his professed boredom with the subjects.

Ashura smiled. "That is most excellent, Fai. Now make the circle. Imagine the spell-runes are on an invisible ribbon, and connect the ends of the ribbon together, so that the first and last spell-runes line up next to one another. Make certain it doesn't twist or cross over, or the spell will fail."

Frowning fiercely in concentration, Fai did as he was told, managing to create an irregular loop. He grimaced and tried to even it out into a circle, but ended up with an egg shape with a dent in one side instead.

This, too, was better than Ashura had expected. Perhaps Fai would even be able to light it up on his first or second attempt. "It's fine as it is, Fai. It doesn't need to be perfectly round. Now relax and hold it steady. Yes, like that. Don't try to force it."

Relaxing and keeping up his concentration proved to be a difficult task for Fai, as Ashura had anticipated. The spell-runes winked out.

"Oh, no!" Fai exclaimed. "What did I do wrong?"

"You merely lost your focus for a moment. It is a common problem for all beginners, and only practice will correct it," Ashura told him. "Try again."

Again the set of seven gold spell-runes appeared, this time forming into an oval. Fai was able to hold the spell-runes steady, so Ashura judged that he was ready to try igniting them.

"Now, you will push enough power into the spell-runes to light them up," Ashura said. "Do this by imagining a small amount of power bursting from you directly into the circle."

The spell-runes glowed a little brighter, but otherwise remained unchanged. Fai kept his gaze fixed on them, his lips compressed tightly together.

"Relax a little, Fai," Ashura encouraged. "Use a little more power this time. There needs to be a quick, sharp surge for the ignition."

The symbols flared and faded, but no magelight appeared. Fai made a frustrated noise. "I can't get it."

"You will. This is normal. Try again."

Fai grumbled a little. He scowled at his oval of spell-runes, and his brows furrowed. The runes' brightness increased, not in a controlled burst as required, but a swiftly growing brilliance that burned.

It all happened so fast. When the air crackled and the spell-runes flared in a sudden, blinding discharge of light, Ashura was pretty sure the spell was going wrong in a very bad way. He opened his mouth to tell Fai to stop—

The explosion was quite spectacular.


	18. Chapter 18

Yūi wasn't sure what happened. One moment his spell-runes were glowing brighter than the sun, the next he found himself thrust behind the kneeling king, ears ringing from a deafening blast. Wide-eyed, he peered around the king, to see a large, blue-tinged bubble floating before them. It was filled with smoke and fading sparkles.

"What—what happened?" Yūi asked breathlessly.

"A small mishap," King Ashura replied, sounding ever so calm. He dropped the hand he had extended toward the bubble, and shifted from his knees to sit cross-legged on the floor. "You used a little too much power, that's all."

A small mishap? An explosion was a small mishap? "I blew it up?" Yūi said. "I could have killed us?" Would he always bring death and destruction wherever he went? Valeria was destroyed because of him and Fai. Then he'd almost crashed the mountain. Now this. He began to tremble.

The king put his arm around Yūi's shoulders and smiled at him.

"It's not that bad. These things happen," King Ashura said in a reassuring tone. "Learning magic involves some trial and error. This kind of thing is why members of our family are always trained by magicians who are highly competent, experienced, and most importantly—" he quirked an eyebrow "—quick."

The king didn't seem to regard this as anything more than a routine accident. Yūi tried to get his shakes under control. "What's that bubble?" he asked.

"A containment spell. It is a variation on a defensive shield. I didn't feel like redecorating my chambers again so soon." Now the king's voice held a note of self-deprecation. Yūi wondered what the king wasn't saying.

The door flew open, and Lady Kendappa burst in with two guards. "Ashura!" she shrieked. "Are you all right? What exploded?"

Both Yūi and the king stared up at her. Yūi could see servants crowding the door, but they seemed strangely reluctant to enter.

King Ashura said, "Everything is fine, Kendappa. It was just a training accident, that's all. I was teaching Fai his first spell, and it went awry. There is nothing to be alarmed about."

"Oh, it was Fai?" For some reason, that seemed to calm her down. "Well, thank the All Mother for that."

The king sighed. He looked at the guards and the servants. "Your services are not required at this time. You're dismissed." Looking relieved, they melted away.

"What spell did you teach him to cast?" she asked.

"A magelight," King Ashura admitted sheepishly.

"A magelight?" Lady Kendappa's eyes widened, and her mouth literally hung open for a moment. Then she broke into peals of laughter. "A magelight! He's got you beat, cousin!"

"Thank you, Kendappa," said the king, sounding aggrieved. "I can always count on you to be supportive."

She got herself under some control, and amid her smirks let out a highly unladylike snort. "I try. I really do, but times like this..."

At that moment, both Lord Suhail and Lord Vainamoinen burst into the room, panting as though they'd been running. "What happened? Something exploded?" Lord Vainamoinen gasped. His eyes raked over the king and Fai, then he turned to the king's cousin, who had covered her mouth with both hands in a vain attempt to hide her giggles. At that sight, his posture relaxed.

Lady Kendappa managed to get out, "His Majesty here just taught Fai how to make a magelight!" before she started laughing herself silly again.

Even Lord Suhail chuckled. "This brings back memories. I can imagine what happened. I almost wish I'd seen it." He looked at King Ashura, and said with a wicked grin, "Almost, Majesty."

Lady Kendappa wiped her eyes. "It serves you right, cousin."

Yūi was shocked by everyone's reaction to what seemed a disaster to him. They all thought it was funny? "I don't understand..."

"Understand what, Fai?" King Ashura asked.

Yūi looked at him. "Why isn't anyone upset about this?"

"No one is upset because no one was hurt. There wasn't any damage at all."

Still sniggering, Lady Kendappa added, "Except maybe to His Majesty's nerves."

Yūi hugged himself and said, "I'll try not to blow anything up again."

"Oh, don't do that." Lady Kendappa nodded her head at her cousin. "He'll be terribly disappointed. Did you know that when he was a student he was famous for exploding spells? Sometimes," she said in a voice laden with meaning and casting an arch look at the king, "he still blows things up."

King Ashura merely sat on the floor next to Yūi and smiled enigmatically. Lady Kendappa grinned and said, "You should have seen the first time he attempted an apportation spell. He tried to transfer a block of wood a few yards. It was just a small block, but it blew up in great style when it materialized. There were splinters everywhere. It's a good thing he was outside in the south courtyard. I had a marvelous view from a balcony."

"I remember that vividly," Lord Suhail groaned, putting a hand to his temple as though he were in pain. "You know, some memories really should stay buried."

"As I recall," the king said, "it was you who suggested that particular lesson be moved outdoors. You must have had some inkling that it might go wrong."

"He'd just had a lot of experience with you by then, cousin," Lady Kendappa chortled. "Why do you think he's getting a headache now, merely from thinking about those days? Not to mention the terrible mess you had to clean up in the courtyard."

"I am not as proficient at combat magic as Your Majesty," said Lord Suhail, dropping his hand self-consciously. "Even when I was younger, my reaction times and shields were not as effective. I knew I would be unable to contain the explosion so expertly." He indicated the blue bubble that floated in the room. It still held a few lingering threads of lazily drifting smoke.

"Your shield was good enough to protect the two of us," King Ashura said. He flicked a finger at the bubble, and it vanished. The wisps of newly freed smoke curled and dissipated. "That is all that mattered. Although, there were a great many woodchips and splinters to sweep up. They got into everything," he added plaintively.

Lady Kendappa bent down by Yūi and said into his ear, "Fai, don't let them fool you. Fast reflexes had nothing to do with it. Lord Suhail was so sure it was going to explode, he put up the shield right before Ashura tried to initiate the spell."

Hearing this story made Yūi feel better. The king had already suggested to him that explosions weren't uncommon, and now Yūi thought that maybe he hadn't just been trying to spare Yūi's feelings. Besides, the king seemed so expert with magic now, so maybe he'd also been telling the truth when he'd said that it was just a part of learning.

In his ruminations, Yūi missed some of what was said next, but caught Lady Kendappa's teasing tone when she said, "Not all of us began every major new spell with an explosion, you know."

To which King Ashura retorted, "That had nothing to do with any particular skill on your part, Kendappa."

"Oh, you wound me grievously, cousin," she said quite insincerely.

Lord Vainamoinen heaved a loud sigh at the incipient bickering and said with determination, "As fascinating as all this reminiscing is, I fear that I have duties which I am neglecting and must return to posthaste. With your permission, Your Majesty?"

King Ashura waved a hand. "Yes, go, go. Anything to forestall another argument." He got to his feet and looked around. "I am sure the rest of you also have duties that you are neglecting and wish to resume, so please do not let me hold you here. Fai and I need to continue with his lesson, anyway."

Lady Kendappa laughed aloud. "A polite and inoffensive way of telling us to get out. Your manners are improving, Your Majesty." She curtseyed and left with Lord Vainamoinen and Lord Suhail.

The king smiled at the closed door. "A pleasant interlude, don't you think, Fai? But it is time to get back to work now."

Pleasant? Sometimes the king was strange. Yūi was glad they hadn't been telling humiliating tales about his past mistakes. "Were those stories really true?"

"Yes," the king said.

"Didn't they... Didn't they embarrass you?"

King Ashura looked down at him. His eyes crinkled. "Of course they did."

Yūi wouldn't have known it. The king had seemed so calm and mildly amused by the stories while Lady Kendappa had been telling them. "Then why didn't you stop it?" he asked.

"Because you needed to hear it."

Yūi blinked at him. "What?"

The king knelt down before him. "Fai, you often blame yourself for things you cannot control. You needed to hear that it is all right to make mistakes. Everyone makes them, especially when they are learning something new." He chuckled. "You also needed to hear that sometimes those mistakes result in explosions."

"Lady Kendappa said she didn't blow things up."

"Lady Kendappa was being..." The king caught himself. "Fai, in this case, it is really a matter of power more than anything else, especially for beginners. Lady Kendappa's power reserves are not as large as mine, so she had less difficulty learning to control her magic than I did. On the other hand, Lord Suhail, who is one of the greatest wizards in the country, undoubtedly blew up his share of spells when he was a student, even if he doesn't admit to it now."

Yūi gnawed his lip. "So if you're really powerful, explosions are more likely?"

King Ashura tried to explain. "Among other complications, yes. The more power a magician has, the harder it is to control, especially for smaller spells or those that require the manipulation of fine details. Think of trying to pick up and thread a thin needle while wearing heavy leather gloves that make your hands clumsy. The task is well nigh impossible for most. For the gifted, it may be possible although it will be very, very difficult and will require a great deal of practice to become accomplished. Magicians with great power have the same kind of problems. Do you understand?"

Yūi nodded. It was true that he had felt clumsy while attempting to perform the magelight spell. "I think so."

"I am not saying it is acceptable to be careless or callous about the damage you may cause, or that you should not attempt to prevent or minimize harm. I am simply saying that until you have mastery over your power and yourself, accidents like this will happen. Other accidents will not be quite so dramatic. And even after you have mastery, accidents may still sometimes occur when you try something brand new."

"If smaller spells are harder to control, why did you teach me one?"

The king chuckled again. "The magelight is always among the first spells taught, if not the very first. It provides the student with a challenge in coordination and energy manipulation while also being harmless. Usually. Also, the spell is not complicated and does not normally require much in the way of control. Most students tend to have difficulty creating a large enough surge to ignite it. In your case, there were two different problems. You used too much power, and also allowed it to keep flowing. You must be careful of those things."

"Oh," Yūi said weakly.

"This is not insurmountable, Fai," King Ashura said kindly. "We can work on something else if you are concerned, but I honestly believe you will succeed with this spell in a day or two. You need to start somewhere, after all."

"I guess." Yūi kicked his toe against the decorative rug.

The king persisted, "When you fall off a horse, you must immediately get back on, lest you learn to fear riding. It is the same with magic."

"I don't know how to ride," Yūi remarked, deliberately ignoring the real point.

The king smiled. "You will."

That sounded promising. Yūi had always wanted to learn to ride, but he and Fai had been condemned and imprisoned before anyone had considered them old enough to learn. The closest he had come were a few times when he had been mounted on a pony and led around by a groom. "Falling off a horse doesn't hurt anyone else."

"You needn't worry about possible damage as long as you promise to only try to ignite the magelight when either I or Lord Suhail is present. Once we deem you proficient, you will be allowed to perform the spell on your own."

"But how can I practice then?"

"You can work on manipulating the spell-runes without the final ignition step. That is the only part that requires supervision."

Yūi rubbed his arms. He was out of arguments, and really, he did want to learn to make a magelight. It would be nice to be able to light up his bedchamber so easily after he woke from a nightmare. "All right, then," he conceded.

"Such enthusiasm," the king teased lightly. "Very well, let us start from the beginning. Draw the first spell-rune in the air."


	19. Chapter 19

Ashura's blood sang.

He slashed with claws of dark sorcery, reveling in the rending of flesh, in the screams of pain and terror. Hot liquid spattered him, bathing him in its glorious essence. Power and strength surged through him, ecstatic, addicting. With each tearing strike, his magic grew, every cell in his body tingling with burning vitality. He had never felt so alive, so free. He could do anything. Anything.

He wanted more. He needed more. More. Moremoremoremoremoremoremore—

He felt cold.

Cold and numb, and so very tired that he couldn't even lift his eyelids. A frigid wind swept over him, and tiny ice crystals stung his exposed face and hands. Was he outdoors? He should go inside. Only a fool would stand witlessly in the elements when one of Seresu's ice storms threatened.

A peculiar lassitude held him motionless, captive to the shroud of numbness over his thoughts. What was wrong with him? He fought to move, to reason, and yet he feared it, too.

He inhaled the freezing air. Instead of the clean scent of snow, a metallic tang assaulted his nostrils. He opened his eyes—

—And barely held back a scream of horror.

He stood in the center of some nameless village. Bodies lay strewn around him, ripped to pieces. Crimson stained the snow, defiling its white purity, the warm blood melting ice and mingling with the liquid flows to create vile, pink pools.

He turned in a circle, scanning with his eyes, reaching out with mystical senses. Death hung over everything. In the entire village, not one person still breathed.

His eyes turned downward, to the corpses at his feet. His gaze fell on his hands, and his heartbeat faltered.

His hands were covered with blood.

Shredded skin and wet strings of tissue clung to his nails. His robes and greatcoat were splattered with gore and gelatinous gobbets of flesh.

No, his mind denied. It can't be. It can't.

It wasn't.

The flow of phantasmagorical events finally reached the trigger point, the spot Ashura had previously identified where he could most easily escape the dream. He had never found a way to flee earlier. It was impossible while he was consumed by madness, bloodlust, and power.

He rubbed his temple and said, "Just let this dream end," with weary defeat.

He experienced the peculiar fissuring sensation that occurred whenever he detached from the dream and witnessed his future despairing self. It was always very strange to live a dream and yet also watch it as an outside observer.

He was so tired of this vision. It was the place where that dark sorcerer had trapped his dreams, and it always took real work to escape and see other visions. He hated witnessing what he would become. He hated the future.

He stepped outside the dream, out into the space where dreams dwelled. Yet another place he hated, with its surreal features and incomprehensible tangles of timeflow and disconnected events. It was a place where effect could, and often did, precede cause. Still, escape into the dream space was better than living and reliving the same horrific future.

A future that he could not alter, no matter what he did or how hard he tried. Instead, everything he did merely ensured that it would follow the path he had foreseen. It didn't seem to matter if he did nothing, or if he actively affected events. That particular future never changed.

The paths leading into and out of the dream were still enshrouded in black sorcery, preventing Ashura from learning if any alternatives were even possible. He had half hoped that the sorcerer would have lifted his spells once Ashura had rescued Fai. After all, Fai's second curse was the sole reason why Ashura's own curse had retroactively activated at his birth. Surely, when he'd brought Fai to Seresu, he had fulfilled the circular destiny the dark sorcerer desired.

Apparently, there was still a chance that fate might be changed. Why else would the sorcerer bother to continue maintaining his spells?

That possibility should have encouraged Ashura, but he was too depressed. He still could only witness one path, a path that was now marked by the river of blood. An undeniable flood now, it gushed from this dream to others, the only others he was allowed to see, the ones that he wanted to change or prevent. The river of blood had become larger and more dominant in his dreams since he had brought Fai home.

At the time, he had accepted that consequence and all it entailed. It had felt as though Fai were his true destiny, his only reason for even existing. Now he wondered if he had been temporarily driven mad by everything he had gone through during those days of terror and despair. He supposed that, in a sense, he had. Even so, he knew in his soul that he would make the same decision again. All he could do now was attempt to minimize the damage.

His gaze brushed venomously against the veils of darkness, but he was careful not to touch them unprepared. Nothing good had come of his previous success at piercing them. Instead, he had had a very brief and unfortunate encounter with the dark sorcerer who had created them. Ashura had no desire to meet that sadist of a sorcerer ever again.

If he were to rend the veils once more, he would need to plan and marshal his magic more carefully than the last time, when he'd been driven by anger and panic.

He couldn't ever match that sorcerer's power, though. No ordinary mortal could stand against a being who wielded power that even gods would fear. If Ashura wanted to accomplish anything, he needed to circumvent the sorcerer's spells, rather than make another attempt at brute force. Besides, despite the contempt the sorcerer had exhibited, he would have surely added safeguards now that Ashura had demonstrated that he could punch through the veils. Never mind that doing so had nearly killed him; the sorcerer might not realize that. Any safeguards set by that sorcerer were sure to be vicious traps.

Ashura needed some time to study the problem and think it through. He wanted to feel out the surrounding dream space to see if he could determine any possible omissions or flaws in the spells that created the cloaks, and then devise ways to take advantage of them. However, he needed a plan before he began the enterprise. In his recent experience, rushing into action always made the situation worse. He should first create some spells to protect himself—or at least mitigate the effects—from any traps he might inadvertently spring while he was examining the cloaks for flaws.

Until he did that, there was nothing to be gained in the world of dreams. Ashura concentrated, created a doorway that would lead to the waking world, and walked through it.

He opened his eyes to his darkened bedchamber, the only light provided by the banked fire in the hearth. That the coals were still glowing brightly told him he hadn't slept very long.

He slid out of bed and created a magelight for better lighting, and smiled at the sight of the glowing orb. Poor Fai hadn't managed to light a magelight during his lesson, but by then he'd been so paranoid about possible damage that he'd been afraid to use even the small amount of power required. He had almost done it, though. Ashura believed Fai would succeed during tomorrow's lesson, after he'd had a chance to relax and absorb what he'd learned. The day had turned out to be a trial for both of them, but Fai in particular had had a very bad time. If only the child would stop blaming himself for things outside his control.

Still, Ashura didn't think the setback would last long. Fai was turning out to be more resilient than Ashura had expected. When he had first met Fai, the boy's mental state had been an ugly snarl of extreme anxiety, emotional instability, and sheer terror. Ashura had feared that Fai might be dysfunctional for a very long time. Instead, once Fai had settled in, he had adapted to his new surroundings and demonstrated that he could rise above the horrors of his early childhood.

While there was no denying that Fai did indeed have some severe emotional issues, he was also capable of functioning in normal society. He did quite well, all things considered. However, he never smiled or laughed like a normal child, and he had a disturbing tendency to keep himself detached from other people. He was too quiet and withdrawn, and was slowly becoming proficient at disguising his feelings and presenting a guileless, untroubled countenance. Ashura knew all about hiding behind masks. He did not mistake Fai's apparent functionality for any kind of emotional stability or health.

With that thought, he automatically checked on the shields he had set after that night Fai had detected Ashura's dreams. Fai wasn't the only one with issues, although Ashura thought his own difficulties far easier to deal with. A little careful magic, and he had a good set of filters to keep the psychic fallout of his dreams from reaching Fai.

He just needed to handle the other fallout that afflicted Fai.

Somehow.

He should take a walk to think. He dressed in a long tunic and cloak for warmth, and, trailed by his obedient magelight, went out into the hall. The night sentries bowed and made no mention of the lateness of the hour. They were well accustomed to their king's nocturnal restlessness, having observed it often enough in the past few months. Ashura nodded back at them and headed into the castle corridors. Once out of their sight, he cast a quick cloaking spell to make himself inconspicuous. He didn't want any of the night watch following him around "to keep an eye on him for his own good," which they were sometimes prone to do.

This night he did not intend to wander aimlessly; he knew where he needed to go. The sacred chamber of his ancestors would not grant him any answers to his current problems, but it might provide help of another sort.

But first he made a detour.

The shrine's massive doors loomed before him. He had not come alone since the day he had brought Fai—his Fai, his Yūi—to Seresu. He waved a hand to open the doors, entered, and walked through the forest of stone columns. The shrine's ambient magic felt warm and welcoming to him, and he smiled ruefully at the silly, foolish fancy that always struck him whenever he came here.

He was drawn irresistibly to the sacred pool. The mirror-smooth surface glowed with the light his magelight cast. He stood at the water's edge and gazed down into the luminous depths.

"I'm sorry, Fai," he said to the small corpse resting beneath the calm water. "I should have acted sooner to save you and Yūi, but I feared your omen of ill fortune, and I believed the affairs of other worlds did not touch me and that I should not meddle with them. I was wrong." The affairs of other worlds had intruded despite his efforts, removing choice and control from his hands. And as for the ill fortune, would it really have mattered? Would what the twins had carried really have been worse than what Ashura himself would one day do to his country? He breathed with the pain of those thoughts and gazed forlornly at the dead child. "I promise you, I will make amends."

As he turned to leave, his eyes fell on another significant location in the shrine: the spot where one day, if all continued as he foresaw, his own body would lie dead by the wrong hand. If Ashura could change only one thing in the future, it would be that. He had to find a way to convince, trick, or coerce his child into killing him.

Calm, rational explanations would never persuade his Fai of the necessity, but other methods might suffice. Ashura closed his eyes and shuddered. There were certainly ways to make Fai hate him enough to want to kill him, but his spirit recoiled from even the half-formed beginnings of that idea. He just couldn't do that, not to Fai, nor to himself, either. Even if he could, success was unlikely; he would probably break long before Fai, who was accustomed to abuse and still expected it. Besides, Ashura's agreement with the Witch of Dimensions was that he would heal Fai, not spend the next seventeen years harming his child further.

He already knew it would have to be coercion or trickery. As always, coercion seemed the best option. One involuntary strike, and all the problems would be solved. He hoped that by then Fai would no longer be so prone to blaming himself for things beyond his control. With luck, he would blame Ashura, instead, for forcing his hand.

Ashura had toyed with the idea many, many times before. No amount of analysis helped. No matter how he turned the problem of Fai's curses over in his mind, no matter what angle he looked at or what other options he considered, he always came back to that single, unpleasant solution. He would prefer to avoid it, for he feared the necessary, world-saving act would destroy Fai as surely as his second curse. However, it seemed the only viable way. It would have to be his last resort. Hopefully, someday he would find a different path, so the worst case scenario wouldn't be his only resort.

Ashura's next stop was the royal crypt. He walked purposefully to its most remote location, the oldest part, where the ashes of his earliest forebears lay. The ancient walls bore elaborate carvings of glyphs and runes in the archaic tongue of Seresu. Nine of those glyphs, he knew, were not simply benign inscriptions, but magical keys into a horrific past and future.

Only a king could find them, a king condemned to the particular destiny they guarded. Only one born to fulfill the doom that lay in the blood of all the Kings of Seresu could unlock them.

By his magelight, Ashura again read the adage spelled out by the runes: "The Luck of the King is the Luck of the Land; the King and the Land are One." It had once been an axiom of Seresu, dating back to the almost forgotten times when the kings had been revered as priest-kings. Ashura had only recently learned what it really meant.

He despised it.

A king born to fulfill the Divine Spear of Madness was condemned to claim magical power by killing his own subjects, and then use that power to battle some future menace to the country. The madness, like the curse of prophetic dreams, was an innate part of the House of Vanir; both were normally held in check by ancient spells and blood seals. A Sacral King was born with the prophetic ability unsealed, and when the present and future collided at the proper time, the king's inborn, murderous nature would be released. The future threat to Seresu was the trigger, and the Sacral King was condemned, even before his birth, by an event that wouldn't come to fruition for many long decades.

According to the ancient, secret records, the threat that triggered the Divine Spear of Madness had always been some magical enemy, usually a race of supernatural beings which threatened Seresu's very existence.

In Ashura's case, it was a combination of Fai's second curse and his own future depredations that would manifest the Divine Spear. The mere existence of Fai's second curse had triggered the Divine Spear, and Ashura would murder his entire country in a driven but futile quest for enough power to defeat that curse, becoming part of the threat that he had been born to subdue. And then the manifestation of Fai's second curse would finish the job by swallowing the whole world.

It was an insane and vicious cycle of predestination that consumed its own tail like an Ouroboros. Unfortunately, the circular destiny that trapped him had caused him to bring Fai to Seresu himself. Additionally, Fai's curse and growing strength were such that Ashura could never gain by compulsive murder the power required to break the cycle. The nature of Fai's two curses, being bound into his very life essence, ensured that Ashura could never lift either of them, which might very well save everything. Neither could he stop his own curse nor Fai's second curse once they fully manifested. Unless he found a way to circumvent or change destiny, Seresu was doomed.

In the distant, forgotten past, it had been understood that the blood seals, once broken, could never be reestablished. The Sacral King could never fully recover his mind or his lost soul. And so, once the threat was vanquished and the king had a brief return to sanity, he would allow himself to be subdued and sacrificed to prevent his further, inevitable rampages.

This time, it wouldn't matter. No one would be left to hold the knife.

The Divine Spear had been so important to the ancients that they had incorporated it into their religion. They had covered the miserable, misbegotten mess in copious amounts of mistaken piety, devotion, and ritual, and had believed the whole to be orchestrated by the gods themselves. There were still traces lingering in Seresu's customs and religious beliefs. Ashura couldn't help but view any such tradition he stumbled across with a bitter and jaundiced eye.

He cast a final, venomous look at the carved runes before he turned his attention to the matter at hand. He had no intention of opening the portal and descending the staircase to his ancestors' chamber. Instead, he planned to recharge it.

The first time he had come here, the complex had lain unused for two millennia, and the spells that maintained it had all but played out. When he had been driven against his will to activate the keys, the spells had replenished themselves by draining his magic to near fatal levels. Fortunately, subsequent activations only took small amounts of his strength for continued maintenance, and hadn't caused him any problems.

Some time later, he had discovered he could tap into the chamber's power, since it had originally been his own, and he had done so to pierce the veils that masked and shaped his dreams to the dark sorcerer's will. He believed he would need to utilize that power again to rend the veils and seek a different future, but before he did so he needed to restore the supply.

The problem was that he had no idea how much magical power he had taken. He hoped that recharging the reservoir of power used by the spells would not drain him so completely again, but he couldn't be sure. There was only one way to find out, and that was to make the attempt and hope for the best.

These days, hoping never worked out well for him.

With that unfortunate thought in mind, he touched the first glyph. As always, it glowed red with sickly green-black iridescence. His fingertips only tingled, and he hoped it wouldn't be such a bad experience, after all. However, he knew well that more and more power would be taken as he continued.

Despite his worries, the next three glyphs in the sequence also went well.

He finally felt a noticeable pull on his power when he touched the fifth. Grimly, he continued to the sixth, and then he felt the draining begin in earnest. This time he wasn't fighting against a geas that forced him to unlock the secret door, so he rushed through the rest of the glyphs to could get it over with.

The ninth glyph lit, and he felt the magic sucked out of him in a sudden, agonizing rush. He fell to his knees, gasping against pain and an aching hole at the core of his being. Hurrying through the procedure had clearly not been one of his better ideas. Next time he needed to recharge the spells, he thought, he would take it slower.

However, while it had hurt him, it hadn't incapacitated him as it had done that first time. His magelight had dimmed somewhat but still glowed, unlike that first time when it had gone out entirely.

He heard the noise of stone grinding upon stone, and looked up. The secret doorway opened for him, and inside the esoteric torches lining the staircase flared to light the darkness.

Panting, he dragged himself to his feet and backed away from the portal. Without his proximity, the door automatically slid closed again. The spells were now fully reenergized, ready and waiting for their next use. Exhausted but satisfied with the night's work, Ashura turned and painfully made his way back to his chambers.


	20. Chapter 20

A week later, Ashura sat in his office reviewing the weekly reports on Fai's education. The child was making good progress in his reading and writing, which were the most important academic subjects for now. His gift for memorization was certainly serving him well. His skill at sums was another matter, but it was early yet in his training. He'd eventually be able to keep an eye on the books of accounts once he was of an age to govern his own estates. Fai would never be a genius at math, but this didn't trouble Ashura one whit. As long as Fai could learn enough to oversee his own household accounts and perform the usual calculations for alchemical and astrological formulae, he'd do all right.

Likewise the art instructor was unimpressed with Fai's work. The subjects of Lord Fai's drawings were recognizable, the tutor wrote amid a great many obsequious apologies and an excessive amount of groveling, but his artwork was merely serviceable, even for a child his age, and showed little promise of getting much better. Ashura snorted to read that. He found Fai's artwork charming. He decided the man was an idiot and resolved to find Fai a better tutor. Besides, Fai could already draw simple diagrams for the creation of spells, so clearly his skill was sufficient.

On the other hand, Fai's dance instructor raved about his natural grace and talent. Ashura couldn't help smiling. Poor child. Ashura had only intended that Fai learn enough to manage one or two formal court dances and maybe some country dances, but due to his own inborn abilities Fai was getting much more than that in the time allotted. Well, those lessons wouldn't continue for much longer this year, anyway.

Come to think of it, Fai hadn't complained about the dance lessons lately. Perhaps he enjoyed them, despite himself. Maybe it was just the physical exercise. It wasn't easy for adults to be cooped up indoors during the long months of deep winter; for a child it must be even more difficult. Then again, Fai had been trapped outdoors with no shelter in harsh weather while he'd been imprisoned. Maybe he preferred to be inside, at least for the time being.

With spring almost upon them, Ashura would need to select tutors for other aspects of Fai's education, activities that required spending time outside once the weather became more livable. Horsemanship, certainly, in light of Fai's admission that he didn't know how to ride. Beginning arms and martial training, as well. It was certain that Fai had never been taught any of that, even though he should have been started a year or two ago. His own people had been so afraid of him that they'd probably never considered putting a training sword, staff, or bow in his hands.

A shame that Fai's formal training had been so badly neglected, but he was a fast learner and was making up for lost ground quickly. He'd be caught up in a year or two. Maybe less, for the studies at which he excelled.

Take magic. As Ashura had predicted, Fai had succeeded with the magelight spell in just another day. In fact, he had gotten so good at it that both Ashura and Suhail were ready to pronounce him proficient enough to no longer require supervision. The only reason they still held off was for Fai's sake. Although there had been no accidents after that first day, the child had been dreadfully paranoid about another explosion. Since he was forbidden to try igniting it by himself, he could relax and get comfortable with the rest of the spell at his own speed, without putting pressure on himself to work at it constantly and in fear of another mishap. It was only his first spell, after all.

Success usually bred both confidence and further successes. Once Fai no longer worried so much about making mistakes, he should make rapid progress. He had already accomplished in just a few weeks what most students took months to master. However, it would be wise to choose something that didn't require sudden bursts of energy for his second spell. Levitation might be a good option.

Ashura set aside the reports on Fai's studies, and turned to the status of the Sunbirth Festival preparations.

The Sunbirth court was the largest formal court of the year, and the most complex to organize. As always, Kendappa had done an admirable job making all the arrangements. The formal invitations had been sent and accepted. Lodging, in the castle and in the town, was already arranged. Entertainers and musicians engaged. The huge volumes of food required to feed such a large assemblage of nobility and their retinues had been gathered, with sheep, pigs, and reindeer penned in the bailey beneath the floating mountain, to be slaughtered as needed. In the storerooms were bushels of grain and magically preserved vegetables, casks of wine and tuns of ale.

The festival was in two weeks, and the aristocratic guests would soon begin to arrive. Ashura reviewed his cousin's lists, wincing a little at the cost. But he winced at the cost every year. He really ought to be accustomed by now. He determinedly moved on to this year's attendees.

Only a few of the noble families attending had children in Fai's age group. Ashura had originally hoped for more, but now believed the lack a blessing. Fai's reaction to Ashura's suggestion that he might enjoy meeting some other children had been alarming. It had never occurred to Ashura that Fai might view other noble children as a threat, but on consideration he realized he should have thought of it, knowing what he did of Fai's background. However, by then it had been too late; the formal invitations had already been sent.

It might be for the best. There wouldn't be many other noble children present, so maybe Fai wouldn't feel overwhelmed. Besides, the other children would behave themselves around Fai. Fai's position in Ashura's household virtually guaranteed that, so it should be a safe enough environment. Fai needed to get comfortable with people his own age. At present, he had no one he could really be a normal child around, just a lot of adults to whom he had to display good behavior.

Fai had been in Seresu for over two months now, and Ashura had yet to see him laugh or play. He didn't even smile, not really. Every once in a while he almost did, and Ashura could tell when he was enjoying himself at some activity. Something about his eyes, and the way his lips would sometimes twitch a little. But never a real smile, and never, ever any laughter.

Fai didn't even show any interest in the servants' children. Normally, Ashura wouldn't encourage that, but at this point he would gladly approve of Fai entering into any social interaction with any other children, no matter what their rank or class. Unfortunately, the servants' children were too intimidated by Fai to make any overtures, and Fai just seemed to try to avoid them.

Fai's behavior wasn't healthy, but then, Fai wasn't exactly an emotionally healthy child, and Ashura was afraid to push him too hard. It was a miracle he'd made as much social progress as he had so quickly, even if it was only with adults.

Ashura sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. It might take years for Fai to heal, if he ever truly did. That kind of pain never went away, not really. It always lurked in the dark, hidden corners of the mind, waiting for the right trigger to reemerge. One just learned to live with it and deal with it.

He went back to the Sunbirth preparations and reports. One thing that had caught his eye was the fact that this year the number of people coming into Luval Town for the festival seemed larger than normal. Also of significant note was the emerging congregation of Völur. Already there were more in the area than Ashura could remember hearing of in one place. Ashura would have paid attention if just one Völva had come to Luval at any time, but a group of this many, even at Sunbirth, was a serious concern.

The Völur were Seresu's wise women and itinerant priestesses. They were held in high esteem by the population. Magicians all, they were important religious leaders and keepers of ancient folk knowledge. Seeresses, too, if the stories could be believed. Not prophets; at least none of them was credited with detailed, graphic visions of the future like Ashura's. No one in Seresu, aside from Ashura, believed such prophecy was even possible. However, the Völur had divination techniques that gave them insight into the patterns of events in the present, which allowed them to provide guidance and advice. It was also said that the Völur could commune directly with the gods.

A wilder rumor was that the gods themselves would on occasion consult with the Völur for advice. The frightening thing was that everyone, including Ashura, half believed it.

Most Völur wandered the country, going from place to place with no permanent home. The most important among them were quite wealthy, as they could and did charge well for their services, and were often accompanied by retinues of apprentices of all ages and ranks. All the Völur were always welcomed everywhere, with respect, awe, and even fear. Their presence was considered a blessing, but also unnerving, and they never stayed still for long. Despite the drawbacks, every king offered them a place at court, but for better or worse, none had ever accepted.

They always attended Sunbirth. In fact, they always officiated at the festival's religious ceremonies throughout Seresu. No outsider knew how they decided who would lead the religious celebrations, but at Luval, at least, it was never the same woman two years in a row.

Suhail was related to some of the Völur. A sister, a cousin, and, if Ashura recalled correctly, an aunt, although that worthy lady probably wasn't alive anymore. Perhaps Suhail knew why the sacred sisterhood had decided to show up in force this year. There were celebrations all over the country that they could and should be attending, yet they were converging on Luval.

The record number of Völur already present at Luval for Sunbirth was just one more worry. Ashura had enough to fret over, with his own newly discovered curse, Fai with his problems and curses, and a frighteningly powerful sorcerer from another world who displayed an unhealthy interest in Seresu, and particularly in Fai and Ashura. Had the Völur divined some awareness about the current situation? Ashura didn't need them throwing their manipulations into the stewpot of disaster, as well.

Ashura wondered if it wasn't time to consider panicking again.

The knock on his door was a welcome distraction. Less welcome was the sight of Lord Vainamoinen bearing a tea tray. That particular combination always meant that Vainamoinen intended to discuss some subject that Ashura would prefer to avoid. There were a great many subjects that Ashura wanted to hide from these days.

"Your Majesty," Vainamoinen began.

"Do you have any idea why so many Völur are coming to Luval for Sunbirth this year?" Ashura asked peremptorily, trying to sound calm rather than perturbed.

Vainamoinen looked startled. "Are they?"

"According to this report, there are already more here now than have ever been seen in any one place before." Ashura tapped the papers on his desk.

"Perhaps Your Majesty could summon a Völva and ask her."

"No king ever gets a straight answer out of any Völva. I doubt they'll make an exception for me," Ashura said irritably. He reined in his temper. "Never mind. I suspect I'm better off not knowing."

"That is the way of things with the Völur," Vainamoinen agreed, setting the tea tray down on the desk. "Would you like a cup, Your Majesty?"

Ashura sighed. "Thank you. Please have a seat and serve yourself, as well." The conversation was unavoidable, so he might as well make the best of it.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Vainamonen settled into a chair before the desk and poured out two cups of tea. He handed one to Ashura.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" Ashura asked after taking a sip. "More specifically, what have I done to disturb the council this time?" He was always disturbing them in one way or another, but couldn't think of anything in the last two months that he had done to annoy them. After his recent excesses, he'd been especially careful to keep his behavior circumspect.

Well, except for that time he had taken Fai out into the mountains, but no one knew about that.

"It's less a matter of the council," said Vainamoinen, "and more of rumor and speculation."

What now? "Yes? And?" Ashura asked impatiently.

"It concerns Lord Fai." Vainamoinen carefully set his cup down.

"What about him?" Ashura took another sip of tea and affected an unconcerned expression.

"To start with, the estates you settled on him. Marilon and Clissin."

Ah, this was not particularly surprising. "I was wondering when you'd ask about that. You took much longer than I expected." Ashura smiled. "There's no great mystery. Fai needs an income, and those properties are in my gift. I have given them to Fai."

"Surely his expenses are nothing more than a matter of accounting."

"Granted, I manage all that now, but once he is no longer a child it will be important."

"You also assigned the Thorris silver mine to him. That's quite an income, Your Majesty."

Ashura shrugged. "The mine is traditionally attached to the estate of Marilon, and Fai's life will only get more expensive as he grows older. What of it?"

"All those properties are part of the royal family's holdings, and are usually reserved for blood members of the House of Vanir."

"The royal family is rather thin of late, as you are aware."

"Indeed." Vainamoinen shifted uncomfortably. Ashura wondered if he was going to bring up the king's widowed and childless state yet again. But Vainamoinen instead said, "Also, the name you gave him... What was your intent, Your Majesty?"

What was Vainamoinen getting at? Ashura said, "I gave him that name to protect him. It will surely do that, since it establishes him as my ward. Fluorite is the guardian stone of our country, so the name will also serve as a protective talisman. It is traditional."

"Perhaps it has done even more than you were expecting."

"Cease this dance, my lord. Out with it."

"Your Majesty, you must be aware that that particular name has had a great many uses over the years. It is not merely talismanic, nor does it only signify a ward or fosterling of the House of Vanir," Vainamoinen said delicately.

"Oh." With his memory jogged, Ashura immediately knew what Vainamoinen was implying. He hadn't considered this consequence. He got up and went to the window. No longer were the skies troubled by heavy storm clouds full of ice and snow. They showed broken spots of blue, and the sun was higher and brighter. The snow never melted away in Luval, but the weather did lighten with the coming of spring.

The weather might be improved, but his mood became black.

He'd known that name had created a small stir, but it had seemed to die down and he'd given it no more thought. Such talk always swirled around him and his family, often about far more malicious topics than the disposition of an orphaned child.

But Vainamoinen was insinuating that no one believed Fai was really an orphan. Instead, they believed him Ashura's illegitimate son.

Ashura's hands clenched into fists as he considered this latest twist. It was a disgusting idea and a nasty slur against him, that he had betrayed his beloved queen when she was most vulnerable. Fai's apparent age would imply to all that he had been conceived either during Luonnotar's pregnancy or soon after her death in childbirth. Ashura was no saint, but the idea that anyone would believe he'd had an affair at that time enraged him. And on top of that, this rumor also implied that he'd repeatedly violated his sacred consecration vows, that he'd world-walked to Valeria to carry on the presumed affair. In all his time as King of Seresu, he had only broken those oaths once, and at the time he had been desperately trying to save his country and had judged the reason sufficient.

After a moment, he calmed himself and considered ways he could make use of this nasty little story. Maybe this particular miscalculation could be turned to a good purpose.

Vainamoinen said relentlessly, "Your Majesty, it may not be common practice now, but in the past the name Fluorite was also given to publicly acknowledged royal bastards. Between that name, the land grants, and the favor you show Lord Fai... Also, it is known that Fai and his brother were twins, and that your..." He stopped and cleared his throat. His voice shook when he said, "Forgive me, Majesty, but your stillborn sons were also twins. It is assumed that...that if you sired twins once before... It lends the rumors verisimilitude, you see..."

Ashura winced, feeling an icy fist clench around his heart, but didn't turn or even move at all.

Vainamoinen collected himself and said, "Majesty, I'm sure these rumors haven't come to your ears, but you must know what people are thinking, the conclusions they've drawn. They've been quietly gossiping about it for weeks."

"What of it?" Ashura kept his voice steady. He didn't turn around.

"Majesty, everyone thinks Fai is yours."

"He is mine," Ashura said stubbornly.

Vainamoinen gritted his teeth. "I see I must be blunt. Your Majesty, they think Fai is your illegitimate son!"

"Is that so terrible a thing?" Ashura could feel Vainamoinen's eyes drilling into his back.

"Majesty, was this your intent?"

"No, not this, but I promised to protect him. Let them all doubt and gossip. By doing this, however inadvertently, I have all but guaranteed that no one in this country will ever harm or mistreat Fai, at least not while I still live." Ashura stayed by the window and thought through some of the possible repercussions. He smiled grimly, though Vainamoinen couldn't see it. "The great nobles and lesser gentry alike will be too busy trying to curry favor with him, and the common folk will simply treat him as they would any other member of the royal family, or at worst as an extremely high-ranking wizard." He finally turned back to Vainamoinen. "They would all do that anyway, of course, given Fai's position in my household, but this will reinforce their behavior."

"And the wizards and holy orders?" Vainamoinen asked. "They can be unpredictable."

"They will treat him well for their own reasons." Fai's power all but ensured that, Ashura thought cynically. "In any case, once Fai has mastery over his magic, he will be one of the great powers in the land, with or without my sponsorship."

Vainamoinen looked at him with narrowed eyes. "You may not have done this apurpose before, but you do so now. I suppose I should have known you'd turn it to your advantage."

"Yes, you should have," Ashura agreed. "I said the name would protect him, and it shall. The rest doesn't matter, and was likely unavoidable. I'm sure everyone in the castle thought of this as soon as I brought Fai home. This rumor would have circulated no matter what I did or did not do."

"That is true." Vainamoinen nodded. He looked Ashura in the eye. "How will you explain this to Fai? He may not be aware of this rumor now, but he will hear of it eventually."

"I'll think of something. He will understand. His thinking is much more sophisticated than that of most children his age."

"Of course, you wouldn't be biased at all."

"Of course."

Vainamoinen grinned, but after a moment his amused expression changed to curiosity. "I shouldn't ask, but... Just between the two of us... Is it true? Is he really yours?"

Ashura's countenance darkened with a sudden flare of anger. "Surely you cannot believe I would ever betray my wife like that, or abandon any get of mine to suffer as Fai has done?"

"Luonnotar," Vainamoinen breathed, eyes widening with realization. "I'm sorry, I didn't think... No, of course not, Ashura. I know you would never have hurt her like that. But as for Fai, there are always circumstances which no one can control," he said with sincere regret. He didn't move, and watched his sovereign cautiously. "I am sorry for it, but even when loved ones are close by one cannot always protect them."

Ashura took a shaky breath and closed his eyes. His queen...and his children... Gone despite his prophecies, despite the efforts of the physicians and healing mages... "Yes, that is so," he acknowledged heavily.

"I am deeply sorry for even bringing it up, Your Majesty. I did not intend to cause you pain, but—"

"No, I needed the reminder," Ashura said unhappily. It was an old sorrow, and in any case it didn't apply to the current topic under discussion. He met Vainamoinen's remorseful gaze with one of his own. "How many others believe this of me?" That anyone would even consider that he could have been so heartless to his late wife, or that he would abandon any child of his to such torment...

But he'd abandoned Fai and his brother to their kinsmen's abuse, hadn't he? He'd only taken action when the Witch of Dimensions had forced his hand.

"Majesty, I have not heard of it being mentioned by any but you. The general assumption is that you only recently learned of Lord Fai's existence and rescued him at once. It is not uncommon for fathers to be unaware of the bastard children they sire. In this case, Fai is from another world entirely, so his situation could not have been easily known. The fact that you fetched him here has done credit to your reputation, not harm."

He noticed that Vainamoinen had avoided mentioning what people thought of Ashura's supposed poor treatment of Luonnotar. That meant the scandalmongers were probably reveling in malicious gossip. Bitterly, he said, "Perhaps you are right. And if not, well, nothing can be done about it. All gossip fades with time and the spread of newer gossip." Ashura flexed his fingers.

He looked at his liegeman, aware that he had only responded to the original question with an angry protest. Vainamoinen deserved an unequivocal answer. "Fai is not of my blood," Ashura stated flatly. "In all else he is my child, but not that. I wish it were otherwise, but it is not so." Not even the Witch of Dimensions could grant that wish, he reflected.

Vainamoinen became alarmed. "You cannot formally adopt him. The political considerations..."

Ashura hadn't realized Vainamoinen would jump to that conclusion, either. "I do not intend to do so. I know it would create too many political problems."

Vainamoinen looked relieved. He gnawed his lower lip and said, "There are other complications arising from these rumors, as well. Your nephew and sister-in-law, to be precise."

Ashura sat back down. His tea had gotten cold, and absently he used a warming spell to heat it up. "Yes, they are complications. Well, not Tancred, but Sybilla is always a complication." His younger brother's widow could be trying when she felt threatened, and these rumors would certainly alarm her and her eldest son. Her other children were too young to understand the impact of the stories.

"I fear the rumors have already spread beyond Luval Castle and the town. Your relatives may have heard the story that Fai is your bastard child. They may assume that the worst of the stories is true, that you plan to change the succession."

Ashura's eyes widened in shock, and all thoughts of the other gossip flew from his head. "Change the succession? You could have mentioned this rumor sooner." Sometimes Ashura despaired of Vainamoinen's tendency to dole out important information in small, ever-worsening dollops. "In favor of Fai, you mean?" An appealing thought, to be sure. But it was impossible, for many reasons. The political ramifications alone would be catastrophic. "Have no fear, I plan no such thing."

Tancred was Ashura's designated heir. The boy and his mother could be easily forgiven for being concerned in the face of such rumors about Fai.

"I am relieved to hear it, Your Majesty," Vainamoinen said.

Which, Ashura assumed, meant Vainamoinen had also wondered if Ashura really had planned to change the succession. Since Vainamoinen had mentioned it, others must surely be wondering if it were true, as well. But there was no point; even if Ashura had intended such a thing, even if such a change in the succession was peaceably accepted by the nobles—and that was a big sticking point—there would be nothing left of Seresu for Fai or anyone else to rule, not after Ashura got done killing everyone in his coming madness.

Vainamoinen went on pointedly, "You know that only the blood of Vanir can sit upon the throne of Seresu."

Unlike Vainamoinen, Ashura knew exactly why that nasty little fact was true. As far as he was concerned, it would be best for the country if the blood of Vanir all died out, every last one of them.

Of course, the way events were going so far, that was exactly what would happen. Just not in time to save the country.

One thing at a time, Ashura told himself. Deal with the immediate problems first. The destruction of Seresu was many years in the future. The rumors about Fai and the succession were now.

"I will make all clear to Tancred and Sybilla when they arrive," Ashura said. "Assuming they even have such concerns."

"I am certain they do." Vainamoinen eyed him, tapped his teacup with an index finger, and added, "You will also speak to Lord Fai? The Sunbirth court is sure to aggravate the situation. The rumors will be a prime topic of conversation. Lord Fai will hear of it, if only through questions from the other children. It would be unfair to keep him in the dark until someone surprises him with this. He needs to know how to respond."

Ashura doubted Fai would voluntarily associate much with the other children, but all it would take was a few careless—or not so careless—comments in the child's hearing. Surely any number of adults would attempt to obtain the truth of the matter from Fai through such a ruse.

It was surprising no one had said anything about either of these rumors sooner, but then again, the permanent denizens of Luval Castle were beholden to Ashura in one way or another. They wouldn't do anything to draw royal ire and make their positions untenable.

Even more surprising was that Kendappa hadn't mentioned this to him. It was quite unlike her. She always seemed to know everything, but then, she was his cousin and people might not be willing to bring such fairy tales to her.

Likely he, Fai, and Kendappa were the only people in the castle who hadn't heard these stories. Now that he thought on it, he deduced that they must have been carefully and purposefully excluded. Until now. However, if Vainamoinen knew of the rumors, they must be quite widespread indeed.

Vainamoinen had probably hoped the whispers would die down before Sunbirth, but clearly they hadn't. With a large group of the nobility congregated in one place, all gossiping nonstop, such scandalous tales were sure to spread like wildfire throughout the country once the Sunbirth court concluded and the guests dispersed.

"I will speak with Fai today," Ashura promised. The sooner, the better. "Lord Vainamoinen, I want you and the council to dispel these rumors by any means you think fit. Spread counter-rumors if necessary. It needs to be well known that they are nothing but unfounded and untrue fictions before Sunbirth commences. That should help keep things more peaceful."

"Sunbirth? Peaceful?" Vaimamoinen said incredulously. His eyes twinkled. "I see Your Majesty is a hopeless optimist."

"Vainamoinen..."

"I shall endeavor to fulfill your command with regards to the rumors about Fai and the succession, but they may have spread too far to quell completely."

They were also simply too juicy and evil-minded for anyone to give up on them. Ashura was a realist about that, having lived his entire life as a focal point for gossip. The stories would be discussed even in the face of uncompromising evidence to the contrary.

The rumor about Fai being his natural child was nothing, not really. It could even be turned to a beneficial use. However, the rumor that Ashura might change the succession was dangerous.

At worst, it could lead to civil war. Ashura didn't really think it would go that far, but then again, if the rumor persisted and gained credibility, people would begin to choose sides. There would be those who sided with Tancred, and others who for their own reasons would prefer Fai. At the very least, it could make Fai and Tancred rivals; at worst they would become even more likely targets for manipulation, violence, kidnapping, or even assassination than they already were.

From there it could easily escalate to include himself, the rest of his family and advisors, and his entire government. While he was embroidering horrors in his mind, he might as well imagine the worst case, which was the civil war he had dismissed only a moment ago.

Maybe it wasn't so far-fetched an idea, after all.

Not that all of that couldn't happen anyway, but fortunately Seresu's political situation was stable. However, the rumor could put unwholesome thoughts into the heads of any who might feel slighted or otherwise dissatisfied, so it had to be dealt with immediately. That anyone would concoct such an idea about Fai had never occurred to Ashura. It had probably started as a harmless piece of speculation, spoken aloud in a moment of boredom or fancy, but it had to be taken seriously.

He said to Vainamoinen, "Do what you must to quash that rumor about the succession. Brandish official documents freely if you have to. Just make it clear and widely known that the succession is not changed, and that it will not be changed unless I remarry and have legitimate heirs."


	21. Chapter 21

Immediately after Vainamoinen left, Ashura set off in search of his cousin. He ran her to ground in the castle kitchens, where she was meeting with the head cooks to put some final touches on the elaborate menus for the Sunbirth court. He hustled her off to a private wall chamber and shut the door.

"Were you aware of the rumors about Fai?" he asked without preamble.

Kendappa's eyes widened. "Fai? What about Fai?" she asked. "I've heard nothing, cousin. What is being said that has you so disturbed?"

"There is a rumor going about that he is my illegitimate son."

"Oh?" She didn't look concerned, and probably hadn't yet drawn the connection Ashura had between Fai's apparent age and the time when Ashura presumably would have had the affair. "Well, I suppose that is only natural. You treat him as your own, and the way you brought him home..."

"There is also a rumor that I am going to change the succession in his favor," Ashura told her flatly.

That one obviously shocked her. "What?" she said weakly.

"So by this reaction, I assume you didn't know. I am relieved," Ashura said. "I was afraid you had decided I didn't need to be told of this."

"I would never keep something like that from you," she said fervently. "I can credit that people might assume Fai is your son. I just can't imagine that anyone would believe you would make an illegitimate child your heir."

"It's happened before, though the last time was centuries ago. Besides, bastard children can be legitimized," Ashura pointed out.

"That is true," Kendappa said, her brow furrowing in thought. "But... But, cousin, is... Is he? Yours, I mean? I hadn't thought of it before, but now... It would make sense, you know, the way you said he and his brother called you to them. Blood calls to blood, magic to magic. And he does display the same destructive tendencies you did at his age. Besides, you show him a great deal of favor, and with everything you've done for him since you brought him here..."

Ashura smiled darkly at her uncharacteristic babbling. Even his closest companions, it seemed, were willing to entertain this fantasy. Even Kendappa, although Ashura was certain that, like Vainamoinen, she hadn't considered the full ramifications of what it meant or how it smirched his honor and the memory of his queen. "Vainamoinen had the same doubts. No, rest assured that Fai is not mine by blood."

"Oh." Kendappa's reaction was different than Vainamoinen's. Rather than relieved, she seemed regretful for his sake. "I'm sorry, Ashura. This must be hard for you. I know how attached you are to the child."

Sympathy from Kendappa? About a mere rumor, and an untrue one at that? "That rumor does no harm, but the rumor about the succession is something else entirely."

Well-versed in politics and the damage that political rumors could do, she nodded in agreement. "Yes, I see that clearly enough. What is to be done?"

"Vainamoinen and the rest of the council will work to dispel the rumors, especially the one about the succession. I'd like you to do the same. If it is seen that my own cousin puts no credence in the stories, less weight will be assigned to them."

"They cannot be stopped." Kendappa, too, had much experience as the subject of gossip and did not expect the impossible.

"No, but they can be undermined and discredited," Ashura said. "The second rumor, in particular, can be easily disproved. There is plenty of documentation. And also..."

"Yes, cousin?"

"Would you please make the effort to reassure Sybilla, if she brings it up? I know you don't like her, but this is something that concerns her directly."

"If I must," she said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes and a long, loud, resigned sigh.

"Thank you, cousin," Ashura said, entertained by her theatrics, as she had no doubt intended. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must go speak with Fai. This all must be explained to him."

"Poor boy," she muttered. "As if he hasn't had enough unhappiness in his life."

"Being rumored to be my child is a cause for unhappiness?"

"Feh," Kendappa said, less than eloquently. "Anyone who knows you would say so."

Ashura flashed her an amused smile and headed out towards Fai's apartments. As he walked, he allowed himself to brood. Kendappa had a point. Though it was no fault of Fai's, the child would almost certainly take it to heart and make himself miserable over it. Ashura wasn't sure of the best way to approach the subject.

Fai did not appear particularly displeased when Ashura dismissed the math tutor. Ashura indulged in a moment of amusement at that; he knew well that Fai did not enjoy doing sums, even such simple and basic calculations as were appropriate for a boy his age.

Ashura took a seat by the fireplace. He gestured to the chair opposite his. "Fai, please sit down. There is something we must discuss."

Fai obeyed promptly, folding his hands in his lap. "Yes, Your Majesty?" he said politely.

"Now, Fai, I do not want you to take this personally. It has nothing to do with anything you have or have not done." Ashura noted the wariness that appeared on Fai's face, repressed a wince, and went on, "It has to do primarily with me. However, I'm afraid it affects you, too."

Fai became alarmed. "What...what is it? What's wrong?"

Ashura sighed inwardly. Fai was still so easily upset. "Calm yourself, Fai. It is nothing urgent or even very important," he soothed, bending the truth just a little. He clasped his own hands and stared down at them, wondering how to proceed. "Fai, Kendappa and I have been endeavoring to teach you how to comport yourself in a larger and less friendly court than the one which is presently in residence."

Fai nodded and didn't say anything.

How was he to explain those rumors to Fai? How did one explain such things to a young child? "There are stories being circulated about you...and me...and you must know about them so you can answer when the inevitable questions are asked of you in the coming weeks." Fai stared at him with rabid curiosity, and Ashura still didn't know how to tell him. So he found himself just blurting out the truth: "Fai, I do not know how to say this gently, so I shall simply tell you outright. There is a rumor going about that you are my illegitimate son." He paused to see how Fai reacted to that.

Fai's eyes widened. His mouth opened but he didn't say anything.

Ashura asked, "Do you understand what it means, Fai?"

Still wide-eyed, Fai nodded.

This wasn't going well. Ashura wished Fai would say something. Anything. "Fai? Are you all right? How do you feel about this?"

"I... I'm not sure how I should feel," Fai said quietly. He looked down and picked at his sleeve.

Ashura closed his eyes, suddenly realizing just how cruel this rumor was for poor Fai. It implied some pretty unpleasant things about not only Ashura, but also about Fai's mother. Possibly even his father, as well.

Ashura wasn't certain if Fai even remembered his father, who had died when Fai was very young. However, he knew Fai did love his mother dearly and cherished her memory. From his own dreams of the twins, Ashura knew that woman didn't deserve the child's adoration. She had killed herself after publicly blaming her children for her own unhappiness over their birth. But that didn't matter now.

He looked at Fai and said, "I'm sorry, child. This is a very unkind rumor, and I'm sorry to subject you to it. But I thought you should hear it from me now, rather than later through some thoughtless remark made during the Sunbirth court."

Not that Ashura believed such a comment would really be thoughtless. Any adult who said anything about the subject in Fai's hearing would no doubt be seeking a reaction from Fai, either to confirm or deny the story. And the other children would be heedless, and ask out of curiosity or possibly even jealousy or immature malice. Children could be heartless little beasts, sometimes.

All he could do was attempt to discredit the rumors now, before they became entrenched as firmly as facts, and hope that no one thought verifying them through Fai worth the effort or the danger of incurring royal displeasure.

There was nothing Ashura could do to control the children's misbehavior. They were too thoughtless. The adults, though, might be moderated. Ashura planned to make it widely known that there would indeed be royal displeasure directed at any who trespassed too far. That might backfire and convince people that this particular rumor was true, but at least it should protect Fai somewhat from open speculation.

He said, "If you are asked, and it is almost certain that you will be asked, you must of course tell the truth, Fai. You need only be honest. We will not practice any deception in this matter. However, those who question you may not believe you. Also, there will be those who will pretend disinterest while trying to trick or provoke you into a response." He sighed, remembering the hazards from his own childhood experiences and missteps. "It is the way of such rumors. People always want to believe and gossip over such matters, especially those stories that relate to their betters. You must not allow this to upset or bother you."

Fai left off worrying at his clothes and finally raised his head. "It doesn't bother me," he said. "I..." He hesitated.

"Yes, child?"

"I kind of wish it were true," Fai said in a rush. He sniffled and looked away.

That confession devastated Ashura. "Oh, Fai," he murmured sadly. "I, too, could wish it were so." It was true. Fai was everything he could have hoped for in a son. Fai and his brother should have been his sons in the first place. Ashura felt his resolve waver, and fought a battle with himself to hold tight to his good intentions. He could weather the storm of dishonor and easily make this rumor as good as true. All he need do was make a public acknowledgement of Fai, and virtually everyone would accept the falsehood without question. The truth his people doubted, but they would never doubt the lie. It was almost funny.

A silly, impossible fancy. He should know better than this. When had he become so foolish?

He almost lost heart under the scrutiny of those big, blue eyes, but he had to continue this unpleasant campaign. It pained him, but Fai needed to be told everything. The second rumor was sure to come up. "But it is not so," he said briskly, "and we must not give any impression otherwise. Fai, there is more that you must know. This rumor has led to another, one that is far more serious. Because some people believe you to be my child by blood, they also are speculating that I will make you my heir."

"Your heir?" Fai breathed. He became deathly pale and still. "But... But that's not possible, is it?"

"No, it is not possible," Ashura confirmed resolutely, both for Fai's sake and to quell the yearnings of his own heart. "I am sorry, child, but this rumor you may also hear in the coming weeks."

Fai relaxed and looked relieved to hear the denial, which also relieved Ashura. The boy asked, "So what should I say about it?"

"As before, just speak the truth," Ashura told him. "I can discredit this second rumor easily, and I will do so during Sunbirth." He did, indeed, plan to kill the second rumor stone dead, and intended to find the most expedient methods of doing so. "However, the rumor that you are my child by blood cannot be so easily disposed of, and it spawned this second rumor in the first place. You will undoubtedly hear the two stories linked in numerous ways. You may even hear variations that I haven't considered."

"So some people will believe I am your son no matter what we say?" Fai asked in a stronger voice.

"I fear so, yes. There is no real way to disprove that story beyond doubt, and so some doubt will remain for a time. However, all rumors fade. New rumors are always more interesting to the gossipmongers than old ones, and new stories are sure to arise eventually." Ashura was bending the truth somewhat. Sometimes old rumors revived and arose from their moldy graves, usually when they would cause the most trouble, but Fai need not learn that particular lesson today.

"Okay." Fai kicked his legs against his chair. He looked up into Ashura's face. "It's all right, Your Majesty. Really, it is. Don't be sad," he said with the straightforward simplicity only a child could manage.

Ashura blinked, startled. Not for the first time, he marveled at the surprising maturity and discernment that Fai sometimes demonstrated, and mourned the reasons why Fai had acquired such skills at his young age. He affected a false smile, the one he used on his courtiers when he wanted to divert them from the truth. "I'm not sad, Fai," he lied, "I was only concerned that these rumors would disturb or upset you."

He got up. "As long as you are aware so you are not taken by surprise during court, all will be well. I suppose I shall recall your teacher now. I know how it grieves you to have your math lesson interrupted," he teased lightly.

Fai hopped out of his chair. "Thank you, Your Majesty," he said with impeccable manners that could only have been learned from Kendappa. Then he bowed.

"Don't!" The word burst out of Ashura before he could stop himself.

Shocked, Fai straightened and stared at him.

Ashura rubbed his temple, regretting his hasty and immoderate reaction. "I'm sorry, Fai, but I'd rather you didn't do that. Of all the people in this world, you should never bow or kneel to me." Not Fai, never Fai. Especially considering the hopeless, agonizing act Ashura intended to one day force his poor Fai to perform.

Instead, Ashura knew he should be kneeling to Fai.

Fai looked confused. "But Lady Kendappa almost always curtseys to you."

Yes, that confirmed the source from which Fai had learned such mannerisms. Kendappa always tried to use formal manners, even in private, family situations. Ashura almost never paid much heed to her decorous behavior. It was a part of who she and he were. She had behaved so since childhood. Even for a silly, childish game or prank, she had always greeted him and parted from him with a curtsey.

Everyone bowed or curtseyed to him. He had grown accustomed, and usually he barely noticed it except when it required some acknowledgement, and even that he did with only half a mind.

He wondered if Fai had been bowing all along, and he had simply never noticed before now.

He said, "Lady Kendappa does so because it is her habit. You needn't make it yours."

"But you're the king," Fai protested. "Everyone bows. In public—"

Of course. Appearances and royal dignity had to be maintained. The king was above everyone and everything. Even his closest family kept some distance in public, and often in private, too.

Kendappa... his younger brother, when he'd still been alive... his nephews and niece... They all observed court formalities. Ashura knew that his own children would have behaved so, had they lived.

Even his late queen had subscribed to royal protocol for most occasions, in all but their private and personal times together. With a twinge of old sorrow, he remembered how Luonnotar had called him by name on her deathbed...

Since his brother and his queen had died, Kendappa was the only person left in his life who routinely called him by his given name, with a minimum of titles, styles, and honorifics, a liberty she had gained from their shared childhood and upbringing. Without her around, he was certain he'd forget his own name.

"In public, you must do what the situation requires," Ashura said heavily. "But in private, I'd prefer you didn't bow. Please, Fai," he said, holding up a hand to forestall another objection.

The child was again gazing at him with those wide, blue eyes. Fai slowly nodded, and said formally, "Yes, Your Majesty."

The formal address Ashura knew he had to permit, even encourage. Given their shared disaster of a future, he absolutely needed to maintain some boundaries with Fai. But the bowing, that wasn't necessary for Fai, not even in public, not really. Fai was special. His role and his purpose were unique in all of Seresu. In his small hands he held the key to the survival or utter annihilation of the entire world.

No one but Ashura knew that, though, and he also knew he was merely rationalizing his own desires. Still, there were a few advantages to being the king. He could indulge in an unimportant, harmless whim like this, and everyone would just humor him. So why not? Why not instruct everyone that Fai would not be required to bow to him, even in public?

But not just yet. First there were rumors to quash, and his acceptance of casual public behavior from Fai would not help with that task. But later, after Sunbirth, perhaps this small indulgence could be eased into regular court life.


	22. Chapter 22: Part III: Sunbirth

**Part III: Sunbirth**

At a complete loss for words, Yūi watched the king leave. He'd only tried bowing to the king, and wasn't sure what he'd done wrong. Lady Kendappa and Lord Suhail and Lord Vainamoinen always gave an obeisance to King Ashura. Everyone in the castle did. Yūi thought he'd try it, too. But it had only made the king even more unhappy than he'd been before.

The king had pretended he was okay, though, and hadn't wanted Yūi to know he was upset. He'd smiled, rather cheerfully, but it was false and there had been sadness inside. Yūi could tell, because Yūi felt like that a lot himself. So Yūi resolved not to bow in private, as requested, and to only behave formally in public. Maybe that would make King Ashura happier.

Yūi thought that maybe the king was a little lonely sometimes, and that was why he didn't want Yūi to bow.

As for the rest, well, Yūi didn't know how he should feel about the rumors the king had related to him. They kind of intrigued him, and that made him feel like a traitor to Fai and his mother. But it would have been so nice to have a father like King Ashura.

The king's soft confession to him, that he felt the same way, Yūi deliberately buried in the depths of his mind. It was something to be ignored and forgotten in the bright light of day, but to be cherished during cold, sad nights when living without Fai seemed unbearable. Yūi knew he could never speak aloud of it, and also that he might never hear those words again.

Yūi sighed and sat back down to wait for his math tutor to return. He waited for a while, but the teacher didn't come back. Yūi assumed the king had been flustered enough that he had forgotten to recall the tutor.

Yūi knew he should call a servant and send for the tutor himself, but he really didn't like doing sums. So instead, it seemed he had some free time on his hands. He decided to stay in his apartment, so no one would notice he was idle and tell the dreaded math tutor, but that meant he had to find some way to entertain himself.

He decided to practice his reading. He much preferred that to doing sums. Besides, he had seen that the castle library held an enormous collection of books of magic. Right now, those texts were too advanced for him to understand. He'd tried looking at them, but only comprehended rare, small bits of their knowledge. But one day, he promised himself, he would read every single one of them and learn all the spells they contained. To accomplish that, he needed to get very good at reading.

The next week passed normally, despite Yūi's misgivings. No one mentioned anything about the rumors to him. Everyone treated him the same way they had always done. But King Ashura had believed that Yūi wouldn't hear anything until new people arrived for the Sunbirth court. Yūi didn't think it would be too bad. Hearing those stories wouldn't bother him; he'd heard much, much worse things whispered about him in Valeria's royal court. Yūi thought these new rumors were rather nice, but he didn't want the king to worry about him or to be made even more unhappy.

During this time, the king and Lord Suhail gave him permission to perform the complete magelight spell by himself, which pleased him very much. It meant they trusted him to use his magic safely, at least for that one enchantment. He spent a lot of time at night lighting one and putting it out.

They taught him to levitate small objects. That came much easier to him, and he got good at it very quickly. He only had to concentrate on the spell to lift the item, whether it was a wooden block or a spoon or some other little knickknack, and his magic would work like an extension of his hands. Only an easy, steady flow of power was required, so there was no worry of explosions. In just a few days he could levitate and manipulate as many as five objects simultaneously. He could tell that both his teachers were pleased.

Then one day in Yūi's quarters, after he had gotten up to levitating seven objects at once and had proudly demonstrated this expansion of his skill to both the king and Lord Suhail, King Ashura made the mistake of asking Yūi if there was anything in particular he'd like to learn next.

Not that Yūi considered that a mistake, but he knew from the response to his answer that the king did.

Without hesitation, Yūi said, "I'd like to learn how to find things and people."

"Find people?" the king asked, raising an eyebrow and giving him a long look.

"Like how Lord Suhail and Lady Kendappa can always find you when they really want to talk to you about something," Yūi explained earnestly.

King Ashura sighed, but Lord Suhail burst out laughing. "A most excellent idea, young Fai," he said, chortling.

"Did I ask for something wrong?" Yūi asked, a little worried by the king's reaction to his request.

"On the contrary," Lord Suhail said cheerfully. "Seeking and finding spells are very useful. Every mage should learn them. Besides, the more people who know how to keep track of His Majesty, the better. With your power, you should be able to locate him easily, no matter where he's hiding in the castle. In fact," he said with a knowing smile, "I do believe you could find him anywhere in this world, or any other world, if you really wanted to. Most useful."

The king shot Lord Suhail a foul look. To Yūi, he said, "Fai, it's a perfectly fine request. Every other magician in this castle can perform such spells. I see no reason why you should not learn them, as well."

Smiling, Lord Suhail added, "Lord Vainamoinen often grumbles that it gives the court wizards an unfair advantage."

"I'm sure he does," King Ashura said dryly. He returned his attention to Yūi. "Fai, you are somewhat young yet to study these particular techniques. However, you may learn them as long as you promise to use them with discretion, and not abuse them. People deserve their privacy, and also must be allowed to perform their duties without undue interruptions. Agreed?"

"Agreed. I promise not to abuse the spells," Yūi replied, pleased to get his way with so little effort. They had guessed right about his motives, but neither of them seemed too worried about it. Anyway, Yūi really didn't plan to abuse the privilege.

Lord Suhail nodded. "Very well. Now, there are two basic methods of finding things, passive and active. In the passive mode, you open your mind and let your mystical senses take in your surroundings. It is possible to focus on one area, but this is more advanced. In either case, you must be able to sort through all the input to determine if what you seek is in the vicinity. Passive sensing is actually more difficult to accomplish with any degree of specificity than active seeking and probes, so we will teach you active techniques first."

Since this was exactly what Yūi was after, he nodded eagerly. He could already do some passive sensing, as when he sensed the king's magic, so he understood what Lord Suhail was explaining. He could also now distinguish between Lady Kendappa and Lord Suhail's magic, as well. However, it was very difficult for him to focus on them with any precision. All he ever got was a vague awareness of their presences. Directed searching would be much simpler and easier, he believed.

King Ashura suddenly looked worried, and cautioned, "Fai, you must remember you are very strong. When you initiate an active probe to find a living being, you must be mindful not to use too much power or mismanage the spell. Otherwise you might accidentally hurt the person or creature you are seeking. This is not a concern if you are searching for an inanimate object, although you could damage it."

"Oh," Yūi said. He hadn't realized he could hurt someone doing this. Involuntarily, he remembered his first spell, which was also his first explosion. "You mean like the way I blew up the magelight spell?"

"Hopefully, you will not blow up any person or animal you are seeking." The king paled and swallowed. "You will practice only on inanimate objects," he decreed, "until you learn how much of your magic you should use and how to direct the spells. Lord Suhail or I will determine when you can try seeking something living. You must promise not to try until we both agree that you are ready."

"Okay." The limitation came as a relief. Yūi certainly didn't want to hurt anyone just by looking for them with magic. "I promise."

Now Lord Suhail also looked alarmed. "Perhaps this is a lesson best taught by Your Majesty," he said. "You do have the most experience with...," he cleared his throat, "...mishaps."

"You have more than adequate experience with minimizing the damage from mishaps with inanimate objects," King Ashura returned. His color had not returned to normal. "In any case, there are other duties I must attend to. There will be a large influx of nobles arriving for Sunbirth in the next few days, and I must make sure all is in readiness." And with that, he turned and departed abruptly, leaving the room's remaining occupants to stare blankly after him.

Lord Suhail muttered, "He can move pretty fast when he wants to. Who knew, after all these years...?"

"My lord?" Yūi asked.

"Never mind, child." Lord Suhail stroked then tugged his long, gray beard. "We will begin by having you search out hidden wood blocks. If you blow one up, you will have to clean up the mess. That should motivate you to moderate your power."

He materialized a small stack of blocks on a table, then sent one into hiding. "Now," he said, "I will show you the spell-runes..."

Three shattered blocks later, Lord Suhail grumbled, "I can't believe I'm going through this again with another pupil."

Yūi looked up from his cleaning. He didn't know why Lord Suhail was complaining. He wasn't the one stuck on his hands and knees picking up all the bits and pieces of wood, so Yūi didn't think Lord Suhail had anything to complain about.

There were splinters everywhere. Literally everywhere. Yūi wondered with despair if he ever dared go barefoot in his quarters again. Maybe the maids would get the hardest ones during their regular cleaning chores. He heard Lord Suhail mutter a few imprecations on the king's head, but they were very low-voiced and Yūi couldn't make out all the words. Rabidly curious, he asked, "What, Lord Suhail?"

The chief wizard looked embarrassed. "It was nothing you should hear, child." He considered Yūi thoughtfully. "Perhaps we have been going about this the wrong way with you. You have great power but little experience. I must think on this. It has been so very long, but I know I found a way to make Ashura understand how to moderate... Hmmmm, no, he learned it on his own that time. In the meantime, you will try again." He picked up another block of wood and apported it away. "You may now attempt seek it out."

"Yes, sir," Fai said automatically. Hearing the king's name again, and in that context, really had his curiosity worked up. But first he had to focus on finding the block, and not blowing it up.


	23. Chapter 23

Ashura really did check in with Kendappa to see how the Sunbirth arrangements were going. She was surprised by his uncharacteristic interest in all the minutiae, but apprised him of the preparations as he asked. He managed to waste over an hour on this useless and calming task, which was his intent.

Eventually, though, his combined senses of fairness and guilt got the better of him, and he returned to Fai's apartment. Suhail had already left, and Ashura found a dispirited young boy on his hands and knees, picking bits of charred wood out of the corners and from under the furniture. Ashura smiled ruefully, remembering his own childhood experiences with failed spells. With a pang of sympathy, he took pity on Fai.

"Come over here, Fai," he said, and when Fai moved to stand behind him, Ashura magically isolated and levitated all the splinters. He gathered them into a ball-shaped mass, which he then dumped into the fireplace. The flames crackled and spat with the new additions to their fuel.

"And that," he told his foster son, "is what levitation magic is really good for."

Fai had watched the entire operation with a mixture of awe and envy. "How did you do that?" he asked. "It wasn't just levitation, was it? It felt like more."

"You are correct," Ashura replied. "It is actually a combination of skills, although the two primary techniques are levitation and a variation on an active seek spell to separate the wood splinters from everything else in the room."

"Will I be able to do something like that someday?"

"Of a certainty. You will be able to do that and a great deal more." Ashura gazed into the fire and forced himself to keep a straight face. "So, I have seen how well your lesson went today."

Fai stomped over to a chair and threw himself into it in a fit of grumpy pique. "I blew up six blocks of wood. Why is it so hard to find things with magic?"

"Probably because you are trying too hard."

"Huh?"

"I imagine you are trying to force the spell to succeed. Seek spells require a certain amount of finesse, and very controlled input of both power and concentration, but they also require you to allow them to do their work and find their own way to success. They are not at all like levitation spells. You need to gently guide a seek spell onto a path and follow it, not direct it with force."

"That sounds complicated." Fai frowned. "I don't understand how I'm supposed to control the spell yet let it work on its own."

"It is a difficult concept," Ashura agreed. "You still lack experience at feeling how magic finds its own direction, so working within its patterns of flow seems foreign to you. I did tell you that you were somewhat young for these particular spells. You will have to put far more effort into controlling both them and yourself than you did for the more elementary techniques you have studied."

"It's hard," Fai complained.

"Yes, at first it is," Ashura said. He paused, then issued a warning he knew Fai would dislike: "Be prepared for things to get harder as you learn, Fai, for this will be true for every advancement you make in magecraft."

"It gets even harder?" The appalled look on Fai's face was amusing and rather endearing.

"It always gets harder." It was becoming quite difficult to keep from smiling. "Once you gain mastery at a certain level, you move on to something harder still, and then wonder why you ever thought the earlier spells were demanding."

Fai made a disgruntled noise.

It was very, very hard not to smile. Poor Fai. And poor us, Ashura thought drolly. This was only the beginning. Once Fai had confidence in his abilities and started experimenting, that was when things would get interesting...and the real "fun" would begin.

"Would you like to try again?" he asked. "Unlike Lord Suhail, I won't make you clean up the mess yourself if the spell goes awry." He remembered very well how disheartening that task was when it accompanied almost every lesson.

Fai looked at him through narrowed, suspicious eyes. "Did you blow up this spell, too, when you were learning it?"

"This isn't about me, Fai," Ashura equivocated, but from the look on Fai's face he knew his attempt to dodge the issue was futile. Fai already knew that Ashura had endured his own share of failed spells and explosions, so this correct guess wasn't really much of a leap.

"You did! You did, didn't you?" Fai hopped down from his chair, looking pleased. "You blew up seek spells, too!"

"Yes, I did," Ashura admitted, all his previous amusement vanishing as old memories surfaced for the second time this day. "It took quite a while before I stopped trying to force the spell into a particular direction that it did not wish to follow. When a strong mage uses too much power and is at odds with a seek spell, the result isn't very pretty. As you have learned." He forced a smile for Fai's sake, because his own memories of learning this particular type of spell were not happy ones. "Now, I wonder where Suhail keeps his supply of nice, expendable wooden blocks."

"He said some things about you. Some of them weren't very nice."

"No, I don't imagine they were." Suhail had probably been quite annoyed when Ashura had abandoned him to Fai, but Ashura hadn't been willing to stay for this particular lesson and have bad memories dredged up of the first time he'd tried to find a living animal. He had only been nine years old when he had learned the difference between a wooden block and a flesh and blood creature, the hardest way imaginable.

That poor dog...

He might as well have stayed for Fai's lesson, since he was remembering anyway, but at least he had himself back under control. He always rushed ahead too fast with magic, even now, and back in his childhood the gory consequences of his forcing a seek spell had made an indelible mark. It was why he had forbidden Fai from trying to find a living creature without permission. Fai would not experience that horrible lesson at so young an age, not if Ashura could help it.

Not many mages had that particular problem with active seek spells. The vast majority, in fact, did not. Suhail claimed it was so exceedingly rare as to be virtually unheard of. But Ashura had, and because Fai's power was so much greater, he certainly would. Starting this early with the seek spell was a calculated risk, but if Fai abided by his promise to only seek inanimate objects he should have plenty of time to learn how to follow the spell and use a light touch. Better to start early, before Fai's power grew too great and he had even more difficulty moderating it for such careful work.

Perhaps Fai could gain some understanding from an example.

"Fai," he said, "some things you have said before have led me to believe that you can sense the flow of magic around you, even if you can't follow it very well yet."

Fai nodded. "I can see the shrine's magic, and I can see and sense yours. Others aren't as easy. I mean, I can see and feel them, but I don't really follow them. I can't really follow what Lord Suhail or Lady Kendappa do, but I can follow what you do."

Probably the limitation was because their power wasn't as strong, Ashura thought, or maybe just because Fai wasn't interested enough to focus on them. No doubt, Fai would soon be able to track the magic of everyone around him, whether he found it interesting or not. It was intriguing that Fai could actually see the shrine's ambient magic, though. No one else could do that. Other kinds of magic were often visible, especially to magicians, but never the shrine's. Ashura himself could experience and feel the shrine's magic; he knew its shape and patterns and even its taste. But he didn't see it the way Fai did.

The child had mentioned the ability to see the shrine's magic before. It was yet another sign of how special Fai was, and how alien to Seresu. Ashura filed that fact away, to be recalled at those times when he became too foolish and forgot that Fai wasn't really his child.

"That will be all that is required," Ashura said. "I am going to seek out Lord Suhail's wooden practice blocks. I want you to watch and sense my magic while I do so. Can you do this?"

"Oh, I get it." Fai's eyes widened with comprehension. "Yes, I think I can."

Ashura hoped so. "Then I shall begin now." Taking it slowly, he wrote out the prescribed spell-runes in the air. He didn't usually bother with manifesting the runes for a seek spell, but he knew that Fai would do so until the spell became second nature. Once the spell-runes were complete, Ashura imbued them with his desire to find Suhail's wood blocks. Then he sent them on their way through the ether and let them pull his awareness along with them.

Fai was watching him with rapt interest, but Ashura kept most of his attention on the route the spell traveled. Normally, he could do this without paying much heed to what the spell was doing, but he wanted Fai to experience how to follow the magic and let it seek its own path.

There. He found the blocks in a chest in Suhail's study.

Ashura withdrew from the spell. He said to Fai, "Did you observe what I did, and how it worked?"

Fai gnawed his lip. "Kind of."

Well, that was better than nothing. "Very well," Ashura said, apporting several of the wood blocks he had just located and materializing them on a table. "At least you have a better idea of what is required. Now, would you like to try it for yourself?" He sent one of the blocks into hiding in an open space in another room.

After Fai had blown up all the blocks, Ashura cleaned up the mess again.

"I just can't get this," Fai grumbled in frustration.

"Relax, Fai, you have only just learned this spell today. It will take practice, just like the magelight. Keep in mind, though, that this spell will be much more difficult to accomplish than the magelight was. It will take more than a few days to gain the necessary skill."

Fai appeared positively dismayed. "How long will it take?"

"That depends entirely upon you. However, don't expect to move on from searching out inanimate objects for at least three months." Ashura was absolutely determined that Fai take this particular spell slow and easy. "Perhaps longer."

"Oh."

Observing the crestfallen expression on Fai's face, Ashura added, "This does not mean it will be the only spell you work on for the next few months, Fai. Of course you will also be learning other new spells and magical techniques during that time."

That perked the child up. "Okay," he said. "So what should I learn next?"

Ashura laughed lightly. "You are ready to try something else so soon?" He rubbed his mouth, thinking. Fai needed something a little easier, something that would allow him an early success. Something that didn't require the finesse and fine, detailed levels of skill he didn't yet possess, and where the clumsiness still caused by his massive power levels wouldn't overwhelm the spell.

Ashura smiled as it came to him. He should have thought of it sooner. It was so obvious.

It was something the child would definitely need, if only to protect himself from his own accidents and misadventures while he learned control. And also later, given their shared, dark future...

"Fai," he said, "how would you like to learn to make a basic defensive shield?"

Fai's eyes lit, and he nodded enthusiastically.

Ashura was certain that even at this young age, Fai's power ensured that his shields would be utterly impenetrable.


	24. Chapter 24

The next day, while Ashura and Kendappa were discussing the last of the Sunbirth arrangements in his office, a servant came to tell him that an entourage was approaching and expected to arrive within the hour.

"A little early," Ashura commented, leaning back from his desk. "Do you know who it is?"

"They carry the colors and phoenix standard of Vanir, Majesty," the servant replied.

"Sybilla," Kendappa said blandly. "And your nephews and niece."

Ashura glanced at her, not trusting the mild tone, then back to the servant. "You may go."

After the servant departed, Kendappa let out a disgusted "Feh" and prowled across the room irritably. "That woman. When she's not late, she's early. Why can't she ever make anything easy?"

"Tendulkar was easy enough with her," Ashura said.

"Tendulkar was easy with everyone," Kendappa snapped back. "Nothing bothered that little brother of yours."

Nothing except an Arimaspi lance, Ashura thought regretfully, but he put it aside. That had happened over five years ago. "Remember, Kendappa, you promised to get along with her."

"I said I'd try, but she has to cooperate, too, you know."

"I've never understood why the two of you don't get along." Ashura really didn't. Sybilla did complicate things often, but that was just her personality. When she exerted herself, she could be quite pleasant and amusing company. Granted, Sybilla was often autocratic, demanding, and willful, but so was Kendappa. They actually were very much alike, so Ashura didn't comprehend the friction.

"And you never will," she replied, smiling. "It's because you're only a hopeless man, and you don't pay attention to the important things."

"Thank you," he said sourly.

Laughing, she came to his side and kissed his cheek. "I'll go make sure their quarters are ready in the royal residence. You'd better make yourself and Fai presentable before they arrive. They are family, after all. And Tancred is your heir and deserves better than for you to greet him in common workaday clothes as though he were a mere afterthought," she reminded him pointedly. Then she laughed again and added, "Or like he and his family had arrived earlier than expected and so you weren't prepared. The king should always be prepared."

Ashura's "common workaday clothes," as Kendappa had mockingly referred to them, were hardly fieldworker's rags, but he took her meaning well enough. "Since we're both going to the same place, allow me to escort you, O Gracious, Wise, and Tolerant Lady," he said, standing and extending his arm to her.

Her eyes twinkling, she curtseyed, rose, and took the proffered arm. "I would be honored, Your Most Patient but Oblivious Majesty."

As they walked to the royal wing, Ashura considered her hint that Fai should also be in attendance when Sybilla and her family arrived. It made sense. The same for greeting Tancred with dignity. Both should go a long way to dispelling the rumors. The court would see that both Ashura and Fai honored Tancred, and that Fai and Tancred could meet openly.

Besides, Fai needed the opportunity to meet his new... Ashura almost thought "relatives," but that was clearly inappropriate. "Cousins" was often used as a catch-all term for any variety of relationships, both blood and adoptive, but given the rumors flying it also seemed unwise. Still, Fai was Ashura's foster son, and Sybilla's children his nephews and niece, so they were all connected. They just had to work out a proper way to address the connections without creating even more outrageous speculation.

At any rate, it was just as well that Sybilla had arrived early. It would give the children time to become acquainted without the pressure and discomfort of having the full Sunbirth court watching them. It would also give Ashura time to discuss the situation with Sybilla and Tancred, and placate them. He was under no delusions as to why Sybilla had made a point of arriving before the other noble guests. Especially since she usually liked to make a grand entrance at large events, and right now there was only the winter court to appreciate such a gesture.

It would also be a good time to deal the rumor about the succession a fatal blow. Ashura had his own plans to accomplish that goal. The sooner he implemented them, the better.

They arrived at the royal wing, and Kendappa took her leave of him to first go harry the servants to rush the preparations of Sybilla's family's rooms, then to her own chambers to change her attire and primp. She left him with strict instructions that he and Fai wear exactly what the servants laid out. Smiling, Ashura headed straight for Fai's quarters.

He found Fai with his reading tutor. The child liked reading and writing. He wasn't pleased to have this lesson disrupted, unlike the times when Ashura interrupted his math lessons. But he became interested when Ashura explained the situation and what was required of him.

"Tancred is already here?" Fai asked.

"Yes," Ashura said.

"And you want me to meet him, and the rest of them, in public? Really?"

"Does this bother you, Fai?"

"No," the child said uncertainly. "But what if they don't like me?"

"They are all well bred, well educated, and well mannered." Ashura had seen to his late brother's children's continuing educations personally. Additionally, he had no intention of allowing any of them to rusticate, and made sure they came often to court. He couldn't move them to Luval permanently, because Tancred was also now technically the master of Tendulkar's estates, but Ashura could and did make certain they had the polish required for their place in life. "They know better than to make a public display."

Fai looked down. "But... Tancred's your heir. What if he doesn't like me? What if he's heard...?" The soft words trailed off.

Oh. Fai must be feeling insecure because of those cursed rumors. "Fai," Ashura said gently, "I am certain they have heard the rumors about us. However, I will make all clear to them that those stories are not true. You needn't fear any resentment from them. In fact, the two youngest are close to you in age. I hope you three will enjoy each other's company. They are frequently at court during the non-winter months."

"How old are they?" Fai asked. "What are they like?"

Poor Fai. He must be very nervous; he already knew the basics about Ashura's relatives, even though he'd never met them and had never before shown any interest in doing so. Ashura said patiently, "My niece, Mielu, is eight years old. Virender is nine. Tancred, my heir, is thirteen. All are quite accomplished for their respective ages, although they all have strong independent streaks that can lead them into mischief." Quietly, he muttered to himself, "That seems to be a family trait."

He said to Fai, "Now, we must prepare before they arrive. Formal court dress is required, I'm afraid."

Fai's eyes grew large. "I don't know what's right to wear."

Ashura smiled. "It doesn't matter. Simply call the servants. Kendappa has already decided what both of us shall wear. In fact, I'm sure she has planned our attire for the next two weeks. I do not believe either of us will have much say in the matter at all."

Ashura went to his own quarters and summoned his body servants. He was rather curious what Fai's formal apparel looked like. A few weeks ago, Kendappa had declared that Fai had put on as much weight as he was going to, aside from normal growth, and had started outfitting him with a new wardrobe. With Sunbirth in mind, she had made certain that Fai had suitable clothing for large, formal court activities. For his part, Fai had seemed to enjoy the process, which struck Ashura as unusual in a young boy. Endless fittings and measurements had not appealed to Ashura when he had been that age, and in all honesty they still didn't. But then, Fai's life experiences had been anything but normal. After spending all that time wearing nothing but a thin, ragged prisoner's tunic, Fai reveled in decent clothes the same way he reveled in excellent food.

When he met Fai in the hallway, Ashura once again had cause to bow to his cousin's wisdom and sense of occasion. Fai was dressed finely in shades of forest green and silver, with no Vanir colors or insignia present. Even the ubiquitous pointed trefoil and quatrefoil knots were absent, a touch that Ashura knew would never have occurred to him. Additionally, while Fai's clothes were of rich materials and decorated with thick, gray fox fur and silver metalwork embroidery, there were no jewels as bedecked Ashura's raiment. Kendappa was taking no chances that Sybilla and Tancred would perceive the child as a threat during this meeting. First impressions were everything. This display demonstrated subtly that, while Ashura valued his young foster son, he was not setting Fai up as the future heir to the throne.

"Kendappa has outdone herself," Ashura said. "You look very well indeed."

"It's brand new. I like it, but it seems very formal," Fai said. "And it's not as comfortable as my regular clothes."

Ashura's lips twitched. "Some things are unavoidable."

He glanced up as Kendappa joined them, looking positively resplendent in an elaborate gown of deep blue silk and velvet, trimmed with lustrous black fur. Magnificent sapphire jewelry adorned her ears, throat, and hair. "Perfect, as always, cousin," he told her, giving her a courtly bow and kissing her hand.

She returned his gesture with a playful curtsey. "I see you two can occasionally do as you're told," she teased. "You both look quite presentable."

"I call you perfect, and yet I only rate a 'presentable' in return," Ashura said with mock disappointment. "You did pick it out, Kendappa."

"So I did, which is why you are presentable."

Ashura smiled and gave in gracefully. "Very well, since it is agreed that we will not embarrass ourselves by our dress, let us go greet my heir and his family." He extended an arm for Kendappa, and took Fai's hand.

They went down to the Great Hall and settled in to wait on the low dais at the head of the room. Quietly, Ashura explained to Fai that the family wouldn't immediately come to pay their respects, but would first retire to their quarters to change from their traveling attire and put themselves to rights. Like themselves, Sybilla's family should be properly attired for a public meeting.

"This all seems very complicated," Fai said.

"I'm certain it was probably quite similar in your birth country," Ashura said.

Fai hung his head. "I can't really remember," he said softly.

Ashura briefly closed his eyes and chastised himself for even mentioning it. "I'm sorry, Fai."

"It's okay."

Kendappa beckoned to a servant. "Bring us a table and a halatafl set," she ordered imperiously.

"Games, Kendappa?" Ashura asked.

"It will pass the time more agreeably than the despondency you two are trying to indulge in." She glared at both of them, even as her lips curved into a charming smile for the benefit of the courtiers. "Remember, everyone is watching. This is a happy occasion, in case you've forgotten."

Usually Ashura didn't forget things like that, but as always Fai's emotions tugged at his heartstrings and made him lose track of other considerations. It was a danger he had recognized when he'd first brought Fai home, born, he believed, of his losses, his visions, and his mystical contract with the Witch of Dimensions. Most of the time it was harmless, but now it was dangerous. Kendappa was right; a game would make them all appear normal and unconcerned.

While pretending to watch Kendappa and Fai play halatafl, Ashura sipped a goblet of wine and surreptitiously scanned the crowd of glittering courtiers. It didn't surprise him that all the gentry living in the castle were present. Given the rumors, the coming meeting between Ashura, Fai, Tancred, and Sybilla was irresistible. Ashura knew no one would want to miss it. The anticipation was almost palpable.

He hoped the actual event disappointed the onlookers.

The whispers and murmurs of conversation died away. There came a rustle of clothing as heads turned toward the entrance to the Hall. Through the doors, Sybilla and her family emerged. Head held proudly, she made her way toward the dais with all her innate grace and dignity, nodding here and there to acquaintances, but always with one destination in mind. Tancred walked on her right, acting as escort, and her other two children followed close behind.

Ashura knew that Sybilla was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but every time he saw her he was reminded anew. Her dress and jewels were opulent and of the latest fashion. Her shining chestnut hair was arranged in an elaborately braided style and decorated with gems and golden ornaments. Her green eyes caught his and held them, not quite defiantly, but it was a near thing.

Tendulkar had always possessed exceptional taste.

Or rather, their father had, although as the younger son Tendulkar had had far more input into the choice of his marriage partner than Ashura.

"Feh," he heard Kendappa mutter next to him. "That woman. Typical of her to make such an entrance."

An amusing comment, coming from another woman every bit as stylish, beautiful, and proud, and equally as prone to making grand entrances.

However, unlike Kendappa, Ashura saw that Sybilla's appearance of pride masked her insecurity and concern. He observed how tightly she held her eldest son's arm, and how stiffly she carried herself. He also saw that Tancred moved every bit as rigidly as his mother, and had also been dressed with equal, detailed care. The other two children just looked confused and nervous, despite their finery.

Tendulkar's family had prepared themselves to hear the worst, and possibly be humiliated in open court.

Ashura schooled his own features into utter tranquility, while inwardly he battled rising offense. That meant they really believed those disgusting rumors. Did they really think so little of him? They should know better. As though he would dishonor his wife's and his brother's memories that way!

A moment later his thoughts softened as he considered what was driving his relatives. They had always known that Ashura might one day remarry and breed legitimate heirs of his own. They wouldn't have taken Tancred's place for granted. The tales about Fai must have come as a terrible shock to them, and they probably hadn't really considered much beyond that. Especially the story that Ashura planned to put an illegitimate child on the throne in disregard of his brother's legitimate children. Once again he pondered how cruel the rumors were, not only to himself and Fai, but to Tendulkar's family, as well.

Any formal announcement of such a shocking change in the succession would mean humiliation for them, no matter how honeyed the language. And Ashura couldn't deny that the thought of making Fai his heir had been appealing, even while he knew it was impossible.

By the time Tendulkar's family reached the dais, Ashura was in perfect sympathy with them.

Tancred bowed; Sybilla curtseyed deeply, lowering her head. "Your Majesty," she said in her lovely, throaty voice.

Ashura rose and came down to greet them. He took Sybilla's hand and lifted her from her curtsey. "Sister," he said, and kissed her cheek. Then he looked at his eldest nephew and addressed him in tones calm yet easily heard by the hushed and fascinated onlookers: "Tancred, my heir. You and your family are most welcome. How splendid it is to see you again."

He heard Sybilla draw a sharp breath, and saw Tancred's eyes widen. No one in the court could have failed to note that Ashura had addressed Tancred as his heir. Ashura wasn't done yet, though. He gestured to Kendappa.

She came down off the dais, bringing Fai with her. Ashura was pleased to see that she had mastered her irritation and now appeared delighted to greet Tendulkar's widow. Fai, on the other hand, was wide-eyed and looking as nervous and wary as Virender and Mielu.

"I am certain you have heard that I have taken on a ward," Ashura said smoothly to Sybilla and Tancred. "May I present to you Lord Fai of Valeria." By presenting Fai to them, he established that their rank and status were superior. "Fai, this is my late brother's wife, Lady Sybilla, and my nephew and heir, Lord Tancred. The two younger children are Lord Virender and Lady Mielu. You remember I told you about them."

Fai stood frozen, staring at them. Kendappa tapped his shoulder lightly, and he started and blinked. He gave them a deep bow. "My lords and ladies," he said in a soft but steady voice. "I'm honored to meet you."

Ashura smiled at him proudly. Fai had behaved beautifully.

"Come, sister, nephew, join us. It's been so very long since we've had the chance to talk." Ashura gestured to the dais, and the open seats near his own. He took Sybilla's hand and led her to the chair on his left. Tancred he put on his right, in the place of highest honor. Kendappa shepherded the other children to nearby seats.

Now they all just had to enjoy one another's company, or at least give the appearance of doing so.

Ashura had no doubt stories of this encounter would fly from one end of the country to the other as though carried by gyrfalcons. Certainly it would be the talk of the Sunbirth court.

Thus were rumors murdered.


	25. Chapter 25

Ashura wasn't fool enough to believe that the stories about him and Fai would just go away now, but he did believe that their heart had been crushed by his public confirmation of Tancred as his heir. The rumor about Fai being his son would still circulate, of course, but now its only value was as disgusting and salacious gossip. Everyone loved a good scandal, whether true or not, and the idea that Ashura had carried on with Fai's mother while his own wife was pregnant—and dying—and then had taken in the resulting bastard child would certainly keep tongues wagging for a long time. He hoped that any real rancor would be directed primarily at him and not at Fai.

He thought there was a good chance for that. The winter court had been present when he'd brought Fai home, and all of them had demonstrated nothing but sympathy for the starved, traumatized child. Ashura hoped that feeling would continue and be passed on to the rest of the gentry when they arrived for the Sunbirth court.

However, the rumor about the succession was as good as dead. No one with any sense would put much stock in it now. That, plus the work Vainamoinen and the council had done to discredit the idea—with official documentation and actual facts judiciously applied where they would do the most good—should be enough to keep any serious political difficulties at bay. Ashura was a realist, and knew he would have to be content with that.

Ashura stayed close by his brother's family for the rest of the afternoon, chatting amicably with them. He was pleased to note that Fai, Mielu, and Virender were getting along reasonably well, playing board and card games together while their seniors conversed. Fai and Mielu were only about a year apart in age, so that helped. Virender was a very superior nine years old, and seemed to be having trouble deciding if he should stick with the "youngsters" or if he should pay attention to the boring adults. An amusing dilemma. So far, Ashura noted, Fai, Mielu, and games of halatafl and cards appeared to hold Virender's interest better.

They were all on their best court behavior, naturally. Every family member present knew the importance of appearing to be on relaxed and friendly terms, especially given the recent events.

After a while, Ashura briefly left them to visit with some of his council and courtiers for politeness' sake—and also to try to verify that his public confirmation of Tancred as his heir had had the desired effect. Vainamoinen stood off to his left, talking with several noblemen. The council chief caught Ashura's eye, then broke off his conversation and joined the king.

"Your public greeting to Sybilla and Tancred was well done, Your Majesty," Vainamoinen said softly and with a pleased smile. "You defused the succession rumor nicely."

"It was not done nicely enough, apparently," Ashura replied, just as quietly. "Tancred has requested a private audience. I do not know for certain what he wishes to discuss, but I believe he still has concerns."

"A thirteen-year-old?"

"A highly intelligent and competent thirteen-year-old, who has been heir designate for five years now. He pays attention to politics, my lord."

"His mother seems content."

Ashura shook his head. "I'm sure Sybilla is only holding her peace until after I speak with Tancred. However, I believe they are both now reassured that it is not my intention to publicly embarrass them, at least. I shall put their minds at rest for all of it, never fear."

"When will you meet with Tancred?"

"During the setup for dinner, I think. The sooner, the better."

Vainamoinen nodded approvingly. "You two are unlikely to be missed in the bustle of the preparations. Be sure you do not take too long, though, or the gossipmongers will spin even worse conspiracies and fantasies."

"I do not expect the conversation to take much time," Ashura said. "There isn't much to say."

Vainamoinen muttered under his breath.

"Yes, my lord?" Ashura prompted him. "You said something?"

Vainamoinen exhaled. "Majesty, a thirteen-year-old boy, no matter how well educated and trained, is often not a reasonable being. You may find your discussion with Tancred less amicable than you seem to be imagining."

Ashura nodded, accepting the warning, and returned to his relatives.

When the time came for the hall to be cleared and the servants to set up the trestle tables for dinner, the family group broke up and went their separate ways. Ashura left Fai in Kendappa's care, and joined Tancred, saying quietly, "Nephew, let us speak now."

Tancred nodded and walked with Ashura down a side corridor. They went into a secluded wall chamber, and Ashura closed the door.

"We should have a measure of privacy," he said. "Now, shall we have our discussion, Tancred?"

He took a moment to study his nephew. The boy bore a startling resemblance to Ashura's late brother. He had the Vanir high cheekbones, light brown eyes, and night-black hair. Tancred wore it quite long, gathered at the nape of his neck and held with a golden clasp. Tendulkar had always worn his hair that way, too.

It was clear that Tancred would one day be as tall as his father, and he was already showing signs of developing a powerful build. His long-fingered hands would be elegant when he outgrew his adolescent awkwardness.

He looked so much like Tendulkar had at his age that it hurt.

At the moment, the boy was practically spoiling for a fight. He obviously hadn't believed Ashura's performance in the open court, and was prepared to speak his mind directly to the man who was not merely his uncle, but his king. Even in this, Ashura thought, he was just like Tendulkar.

Tendulkar, Ashura's heart cried. Brother, I'm so sorry I sent you to the border with Arimaspea.

But Tendulkar had wanted to go. He had been a terrible fire-eater when given the opportunity, and at the time no one had believed the situation more serious than another minor skirmish with Arimaspi raiders. Instead, it had been a decently organized incursion of raiders and rogue magicians working in tandem. Tendulkar and the overlord of the Southlands, Lord Taishaku, had crushed it, but during the last battle Tendulkar took too many magical attacks that destroyed his shields and left him vulnerable to an Arimaspi lance.

Unlike Luonnotar's death, Ashura hadn't been tormented by prophetic dreams about Tendulkar's fate. It had come as a complete surprise. Perhaps that was why Tendulkar's demise hadn't scarred him as deeply as Luonnotar's.

However, he had always wondered if the Arimaspi had targeted his brother deliberately, or if Tendulkar had really just been an ordinary battle casualty. It happened, even to strong fighting wizards, but there still remained within Ashura a small seed of doubt. The Arimaspi king abided by the treaty, at least officially, but he made no secret that he hated Ashura just for maintaining the border and protecting his own territory. King Skudra was a greedy and vicious old whoreson. An Arimaspi warrior could win great favor with him by killing one of Seresu's royal family.

But what difference did it make in the long term? Ashura wondered. He was going to kill everyone in the country himself one day. Even Tancred. Was he really any better than Skudra? Ashura gazed forlornly at his nephew, feeling bowed under the crushing weight of unbearable truth.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty, are you all right?"

Ashura shook himself out of his memories and despair, and realized his nephew was speaking to him. "I'm sorry, Tancred. I was woolgathering."

"You?" Tancred asked, incredulously.

"Even me." Ashura smiled gently. "I was just thinking about how much you look like your father."

The belligerence in Tancred's posture drained away, leaving behind an uncertain thirteen-year-old boy. "Uncle," he said, and swallowed. Then he firmed himself again. "Your Majesty, I didn't come here to talk about Father."

"I know," Ashura said calmly. "You came to talk about Fai and the succession."

"How—?"

"It's all anyone can talk about these days." He let himself sigh. "We must finish our discussion quickly and arrive on time for dinner, else our absence will add to the nonsense."

"Is it nonsense?" Tancred's eyes held challenge and defiance, reminding Ashura yet again of his brother.

"Yes, it is all nonsense. Tancred, the succession is not changed. I will show you the official documents if you like, but you can take my word for it."

"Everyone says that Fai will one day sit on the throne."

"Anyone who says so is wrong. Don't be foolish, Tancred. Fai will never sit on the throne of Seresu. He cannot." Ashura couldn't help but reflect that he spoke the perfect truth. Even if Fai had carried the right blood, there would be no throne of Seresu for him to sit upon.

"But if he's your son..." Tancred trailed off, suddenly looking insecure and nervous.

"Fai is not my son, Tancred," Ashura said softly. "He is the scion of a defunct royal house from another world entirely. I admit that I do love him as my own, but there is no blood connection between us. The rumors are malicious pieces of gossip and quite hurtful and damaging, but they hold no truth whatsoever."

"So you weren't just trying to appease the court? I remain your heir?"

"Barring my remarrying and breeding legitimate children, yes." At Tancred's look of surprise, Ashura uttered a sharp bark of laughter. "Surely you must have realized that those events might yet occur. I am harried often by Lord Vainamoinen and Lady Kendappa on that particular subject."

Tancred cast his gaze downward. "My apologies, Your Majesty. I do understand this, I just didn't think..."

"No, you didn't."

The boy looked up again, his light brown eyes flashing. "And if you don't produce a legitimate heir?" he demanded.

He really was so much like Tendulkar, fighting for what he believed to be his right. "I promise you, Tancred, that if I have no children of my own, and if you outlive me, you will become King of Seresu." The final, necessary condition, Ashura knew, would never come to pass. He held his features in their usual serene mask, but inside he was grieving. How could he murder this nephew who was so much like Tendulkar?

Those brown eyes widened. "If I outlive you?" Tancred asked nervously.

Ashura hadn't meant to make that slip, which he realized sounded too much like an immediate threat to a hot-headed teenager. "Tancred, in a few months you will be sent to Lord Bishamon for your military training. When he deems you ready, you will most likely engage in battle on the border with Arimaspea. And when you are of sufficient age and experience, you will lead your own troops. Can you see the future, that you know for certain you will outlive me? Your father was a year younger than me, but he has been gone for five long years now."

Ashura stopped talking and blinked rapidly to clear a blur of moisture from his eyes. No matter what, Tancred would not outlive him. He again thought of Tendulkar, and of his own bloody future, and his relatives' ultimate fates. He would one day tear them to pieces, laughing. It would be a blessing if Tancred died as his father had, with honor in battle, rather than be savagely murdered by his own uncle.

"Un...Uncle," Tancred stammered, "I'm sorry." He reached out to touch Ashura's hand. "Don't worry about me. I know how to fight. I'm good with weapons and combat magic both. You won't keep me away from fighting, will you? Lord Bishamon has promised he won't hold me back just because I'm your nephew, and I... I do want to go. I really do."

Ashura appreciated Tancred's gesture of comfort. Truly, he was a good child, and a worthy heir. "Of course you do. You're as much of a fire-eater as your father was," Ashura said briskly. "You need not fear that I will overprotect you. In fact, I look forward to having you command the royal army one day."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Tancred said obediently, but Ashura knew he was about as obedient as his father had been, which was not at all. Then Tancred fidgeted and hemmed and hawed a bit before asking, "Your Majesty, how do you want me to act around Fai?"

"Just treat him kindly, Tancred. One day he will be the greatest wizard in the entire world. Perhaps he will even be your own chief wizard, as Lord Suhail is mine." It would never happen, but it was nice sometimes to dream of pleasanter futures than the horror to come. "It would be best for the two of you to be on good terms. That will help to defuse the rumors, as well, if it is seen that you are kind to him."

Fai. Ashura considered Fai, this time in terms of combat magic. He could visualize Fai riding into battle at Tancred's side, the two of them vanquishing their foes with ease. Together, they would be invincible. Fai would probably be a natural war wizard, if he so chose. Destruction was a trivial matter when power was so great. Why, just look at his seek spells. Like Ashura, he could easily annihilate the target without intending to do so...

A shocking, unbidden idea took life in Ashura's head. He could offer himself as Fai's first living target of a seek spell. He could do it before Fai learned to control the spell, and let Fai's unrestrained power shatter him like it shattered Suhail's wooden practice blocks.

Even as the thought formed, Ashura dismissed it. There were too many reasons not to try it. It would destroy Fai emotionally. Fai was too young to protect himself from the inevitable backlash of Seresu's nobles against their king's inadvertent killer; they wouldn't care that Fai was only a child, nor that it had been an accident on his part. It would do nothing to remove Fai's first curse, which also needed eliminating. Ashura's own curse might prevent Fai from killing him too soon, or even redirect the spell so that it harmed someone else.

Additionally, the act would violate Ashura's contract with the Witch of Dimensions to raise Fai to adulthood. For all Ashura knew, the contract would prevent the lethal spell from succeeding, or twist it so that instead of killing him, it punished him with physical or mental damage but left him alive. The stories all claimed that horrific consequences befell those who broke faith with the Witch, and Ashura believed them. He had no idea what could possibly be worse than what was already going to happen to him and his country, and he wasn't yet desperate enough to tempt fate and find out.

There were so many reasons against making the attempt, but it would solve so many problems...

"Uncle, are you woolgathering again?" Tancred's worried voice broke into Ashura's depressing musing.

He looked affectionately at his nephew, accepting that for now he would just have to continue living his burdensome life. "I'm afraid so, Tancred. It is a sign of advancing age."

Tancred laughed dutifully, but in truth it wasn't really a joke. Ashura knew he looked much younger than his physical years, because great magic retarded the aging process significantly once full growth and development had been achieved. He wouldn't look old until he started approaching Suhail's age—also greater than anyone would suspect—and his body finally began to wear out. Not that he ever had to worry about that happening, he thought bitterly.

"So, my nephew, have I set your mind at ease?" he asked. "Or do you still believe I plan to displace you?"

"No, no... I believe you. I always wanted to believe you wouldn't do that to me, but we heard those stories, and they just seemed so...so..."

"So plausible? That is what makes them such a danger," Ashura said. "However, as long as the family presents a united front, all will be well. Now, let us go back in to dinner, and demonstrate to all assembled that we are in amity with one another."


	26. Chapter 26

Over the next several days, the castle and town filled up rapidly with the arriving Sunbirth celebrants. Visiting commoners and lower ranking gentry and magicians stayed in Luval Town, but the more important nobles, wizards, and their retinues were given lodging in the castle. The castle staff geared up for high level entertaining, with servants constantly moving between endless tasks. Colorful garlands, banners and tapestries, and crystal decorations brightened the castle's stone walls. Elaborate meals had to be prepared and served, cleaning done, musicians and various players performed at scheduled times, and through it all a stream of messengers flowed in and out, always seeking out some lord or lady. Somehow, the chaos worked.

King Ashura excused Yūi from his studies for the duration of the festival. Yūi wouldn't miss the math lessons, but was disappointed that he would also not be learning any new magic for a while. He could understand why, though. Both the king and Lord Suhail were very busy all the time at court. Yūi watched them as they went about their duties, and felt especially sorry for King Ashura. The king had to talk to everybody, it seemed. Most of the time people came to him, but he would also often move about the Great Hall as if restless. Sometimes, when he got a break from his social duties, he looked tired and sad, but whenever he spoke with visiting nobles and wizards he always made himself seem pleased to see them.

Lady Kendappa and Lady Sybilla also moved about the court and spoke with as many people as possible. Yūi noticed that they tended to stay on opposite sides of the Hall, and that solved the problem of their mutual dislike. However, despite the fact that they didn't want to be near each other, they both looked like they enjoyed the socializing. They might only be pretending, just like the king was pretending, although Yūi didn't think so.

There were a few other noble children in attendance, but Yūi hadn't met them yet. He hadn't decided if he wanted to risk it. He probably wouldn't. He had too many bad memories from Valeria, and knew that the stories about him might make him a target again. So he opted for avoidance, a skill he had learned very well in Valeria. He stayed with the children he already knew, Mielu and Virender. Being with them shielded him from the necessity of associating with children he didn't know and couldn't trust.

When he'd first met Mielu and Virender just three days earlier, Yūi had been hesitant to engage much with them, but because of the family situation he'd had no choice. Surprisingly, they turned out to be good company. They were nice to him, when he had expected them to be mean because of the rumors about him and the king. After all, their older brother was King Ashura's heir, so Yūi would have understood if they were resentful of him. Instead, they both cheerfully dragged Yūi into games and mischief.

It was during a fast-paced card game that they finally became aware of how somber Yūi's personality was. Mielu noticed first and stopped playing. "Aren't you having fun, Fai?" she asked.

He stared at her. Since he'd been throwing down cards just as furiously as they had been, he didn't understand why she looked concerned. "Why do you ask that?"

"You never laugh with us or even smile."

"Oh." Yūi lowered his eyes. "Well, I..."

"It's because his brother died," Virender said bluntly. "Stop pestering him about it, Mielu."

And that, Yūi was amazed to discover, was the end of that. The king had never mentioned to him that gossip could be a good thing, but Virender's comment revealed that he and Mielu had heard all about Yūi, and it had had a good effect. They all continued to play games together, and neither Mielu nor Virender mentioned Yūi's sadness again.

Fai's death wasn't the only reason Yūi always felt a little sad, but it was the only reason he could admit to anyone else. The future he had chosen for himself grieved him terribly when he thought about it, but now he could put it aside for long periods of time. It would be many, many years before he had to fulfill his promises to that sorcerer and betray the travelers he had yet to meet. So why not try to enjoy this lovely new life until then?

Still, he often felt guilty about hiding behind Fai's death to avoid admitting the whole truth, especially at times like this. Mielu and Virender were always so nice to him. They actually seemed to like him. And he liked them, too. It surprised him, that he could like other children, but it was true.

Both of them looked a lot like the king, Yūi thought. Both had straight black hair and light brown eyes, and the same sculpted features. King Ashura and his brother must have looked a lot alike. Yūi wondered if King Ashura had acted like Virender and Mielu when he'd been young, and thought that maybe he had. There was something about the way the king sometimes spoke and behaved that made Yūi think he still enjoyed a bit of mischief when he could escape his guards, councilors, and courtiers.

Now Yūi stood in the Great Hall with Mielu and contemplated the concourse of gentlefolk. The more people who arrived, the fancier the clothes and jewels everyone wore. It was all very pretty to look at, but unless some entertainers were performing, it was also kind of boring at court. At the moment, there were no jugglers or musicians or mummers or anything. He almost thought that a math lesson would be more interesting.

Almost.

"This is so dull," Mielu said, echoing his thoughts. "What do you want to do, Fai?"

"I don't know," he admitted. He was a little tired of board and card games, and the adults got cross when the children played tag or other games that involved a lot of chasing and hiding. Mielu and Virender had introduced him to those kinds of games, and he had to admit that he enjoyed them. He thought he was really good at hiding, running, and dodging. The king had smiled to see it and complimented Yūi on his agility, but some of the nobles had been unhappy. Mielu claimed the adults just didn't like having children around, but Yūi thought it was because she and Virender kept running into people. Finally, King Ashura had asked the three of them to "stop tearing about" for a while. He'd seemed regretful to do it, though, so Yūi believed the moratorium wouldn't last long.

Mielu said, "Well, I'm bored. We can't do anything good in the Hall right now. You want to sneak out? We can go somewhere else and have some fun."

"Sneak out?"

She nodded. "Right now, no one's paying attention to us. It's the perfect time. Maybe we could go outside."

"I don't want to go outside," Yūi said. "It's too cold. Besides, the guards would probably make us come back in."

Mielu pursed her lips. "You're right. Where do you think we should go? What sounds good?"

"We could go to the kitchens," Yūi suggested. That was where the food was, and food always held his interest. "The cooks like me. They'll probably give us something nice."

Mielu's eyes lit. "Good idea. We should take Virender, too. He thinks he's so grown up just because he's a year older than me, but he'll get mad if we leave him out."

The two children looked around for him, but couldn't find him in the crowd of gentlefolk filling the Great Hall.

"He's probably with Mother or Tancred," Mielu decided. She shrugged, displaying no trace of regret that she hadn't found her brother. "Oh, well. We tried."

She grabbed Yūi's hand and led him through the throngs toward the entrance to the Hall. "We'll have to start getting sneaky now," she said softly. "They don't like us to go off by ourselves during these big festivals."

"But it's only the castle. I can go anywhere I want," Yūi said, stretching the truth somewhat. There were actually quite a few places that were off-limits to him when he was on his own, like the shrine, or places everyone claimed were too dangerous for him at all, like the armory, the apothecaries' workshop, and, inexplicably, the eastern wall. But no one ever cared if he visited the cooks.

"Normally I can, too," Mielu said. "But these great big special courts are different. Mother says she doesn't like to have to hunt for us and worry about where we've gotten to."

Yūi wondered if the king would also dislike it. He hadn't said anything to Yūi, but maybe he just hadn't thought of it. It would be best to keep their trip to the kitchens secret. Yūi didn't want to upset King Ashura, but he wasn't about to miss a visit to the cooks.

"It's not dangerous or anything, and the servants will take care of us if we need something," Yūi said confidently.

"We're just lucky they haven't yet made any of their wizards or retainers keep watch over us," was Mielu's gloomy reply. "They will soon, especially if they catch us."

"Do you want to stay, then?"

"Oh, no. Let's still go, but we need to be really, really sneaky."

Carefully winding their way through crowd, the two young conspirators reached the door and slipped out into the corridor beyond. They still had to be careful, even outside the Great Hall. Well-dressed people were going in, others were leaving, and legions of servants moved purposefully throughout the hallways. The noise levels lowered only a little.

"It's going to be harder than I expected to stay unnoticed," Yūi said, but he saw that no one seemed to be paying attention to him and Mielu. At least, not yet.

"Let's get out of the main corridors," Mielu suggested, "where there won't be so many people to worry about."

Both children knew their way around the castle, and surreptitiously made their way down several levels. Soon the smell of delicious food reached Yūi's nostrils. He really liked visiting the kitchens.

The kitchens were every bit as busy as the upper levels, with cooks, their assistants, and other workers bustling purposefully to prepare the enormous amounts of food required by the court. The cooks were surprised by their two young guests, and sent them startled glances, but didn't even slow the tempo of their preparations.

One of the senior cooks came over. "Lord Fai, Lady Mielu," he said, giving them an abbreviated bow. "What are you two doing here? Does the king or Lady Sybilla know you're down here?"

Yūi started and looked down guiltily. The cooks didn't usually act like this. Maybe Mielu was right and they really weren't supposed to come here during the Sunbirth court.

"We just needed to get away from all those stuffy grownups for a little while," Mielu said unrepentantly. "It's boring in the Hall right now. Don't tell on us, please?"

"Only if you promise to go back right away," the cook said.

"Oh, okay, I guess..."

Yūi lifted his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't know we weren't supposed to visit," he said hesitantly.

The cook flashed a broad smile at him. "Don't look so unhappy, Lord Fai. It's not hurting anything. Just go back before anyone gets upset."

Another cook came over, bearing a platter of honey and hazelnut pastries. With twitching lips, she said, "Perhaps the children would like a snack before they go?" She exchanged an indulgent look with the senior cook.

"May we?" said Mielu.

"Of course." The second cook bent down and offered the tray to the children. "Just one for each of you," she said. "You don't want to spoil your dinners."

Both children grabbed a pastry. "Thank you," said Yūi.

"It's our pleasure," replied the senior cook. "Now, go quickly, all right? Remember, you promised you'd go back to the court."

"We will," Mielu said airily. "We promise." Giggling, she clutched her pastry and lightly tripped back upstairs.

Yūi almost ran into her when she stopped right in front of him in a side corridor on the way back to the Great Hall. She grinned at him and took a big bite of her pastry. "Oh, that's so good," she said, her words a little muffled by the half-chewed food in her mouth. She swallowed and added, "The king has the best cooks. Mother says he must pay them a lot. She can't lure any of them away, no matter how hard she tries."

"Don't tell Lady Kendappa that," Yūi said. "She'd get mad if she found out anyone tried to steal the cooks." He knew that Lady Kendappa was quite proud of the royal household she managed., and that she really didn't like Lady Sybilla. He didn't even want to think about how she would react to hearing that Lady Sybilla wanted to steal the cooks.

"Never," Mielu said. "Lady Kendappa can be scary when she's mad." She took another bite of her snack. "Try it, Fai. It's really good."

Yūi sampled his pastry and nodded. It tasted heavenly, with layers of flakey pastry filled with mashed berries and chopped nuts and drenched in honey. It was also quite sticky, but Yūi didn't mind. He just licked the honey from his fingers.

He thought it was a good thing Lady Sybilla couldn't steal any of the cooks away. He loved their food so much.

"I wish I could make food like this," he said, swallowing another bite. "Someday I'm going to ask the cooks to teach me."

Mielu blinked at him. "Will the king let you do that?"

"Why not? He's got other people teaching me all kinds of things."

"I think cooking food like this would be so interesting! Mother would never let me learn anything like that. She says cooking is servants' work."

"Oh." Yūi had never actually asked King Ashura if it was all right to learn to cook. He realized he didn't know what the king would say. Maybe he should ask after the Sunbirth court and find out. "Well, it can't hurt to ask." He tried to sound confident, but he wasn't sure.

"I hope you get to learn. Then you can teach me. Mother couldn't complain if you taught me." Mielu finished her pastry and delicately licked her hands.

Yūi thought that was a very strange thing for her to say. He ate a few more bites, noticing that Mielu had gone silent and was looking at him with a question in her eyes. "Mielu, what is it?" he asked, sucking a glob of honey off his palm.

She looked at him for a long moment, then asked suddenly, "Fai, are you my cousin?"

Yūi blinked, startled, and stopped eating. This wasn't the first time someone had wanted to know about his relationship to the king. As King Ashura had warned him, a number of people had mentioned the rumor, or even tried to get a reaction from him in some sneaky ways, like talking about it around him while pretending not to watch him. Yūi was pretty sneaky himself, though, and didn't fall for their tricks. He'd also noticed some of the other noble children whispering and watching him, and he was pretty sure that was what they were talking about.

Mielu's question, however, was blunt and direct. Nobody else had asked so honestly. She didn't seem mean or spiteful about it, just curious and, oddly, a little hopeful.

"No," he said, and felt bad when she looked disappointed.

"Oh, that's too bad," she said. "I think you'd make a nice cousin."

Yūi said honestly, "You'd be a nice cousin, too. But really, I'm not your cousin."

"It's what people are saying, you know, but that doesn't mean anything. They say lots of mean things that aren't always true." She twisted her hands in her velvet skirts to wipe off the remaining stickiness. "People talk about us all the time and tell all kinds of lies. And now they're talking about you, too, so I kind of thought it might be true this time. I didn't think they'd talk about you if you weren't family."

"Oh." Yūi didn't know what to say to that tangled explanation. He covered his confusion by eating the last few bites of his pastry.

Mielu said artlessly, "I listen when they don't notice. I know Mother believes it's true, and so do a lot of other people." She added in a confiding tone, "Even some of the court wizards think it's true. They say your magic is a lot like the king's."

Yūi reddened. "That's because I blow stuff up. I don't mean to, but Lord Suhail says I use too much power all the time. Lady Kendappa told me the king used to do that, too, so I guess that's why the wizards said those things."

Mielu looked apologetic. "It's okay. Don't be embarrassed. Besides, if the king did it, it must be okay, right?"

"Right."

"Anyhow, all that made me think you might really be my cousin. I'm sorry you're not."

"I kind of wish it was true," Yūi admitted, looking down at his hands. "The king would make a really nice father."

"Mother says he's never been the same since Queen Luonnotar died. I was only a baby then. I don't know what happened, but I guess it was really bad."

"Who's Queen Luonnotar?"

"She was King Ashura's wife. I've seen a painting of her. She was really pretty. Mother said it was a terrible tragedy when she died, but she never told me any more than that."

"Oh. The king's never talked to me about it. I didn't know."

Mielu's eyes suddenly widened. She leaned in and whispered, "Don't tell anyone I told you. No one's supposed to talk about it. Mother says it upsets him a lot."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise," Yūi said thoughtfully. He'd had no idea that the king had been married before. No one had ever breathed a word to him until now. King Ashura's only brother was also dead, and Yūi had never heard about any other relatives besides the ones he'd met. Were they all dead, too? No wonder the king understood so well about Yūi's own grief.

Mielu smiled at him and grabbed his hand. "We can pretend we're cousins. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

It sounded like the sort of thing the king had told Yūi not to do. "That's lying," Yūi said. "King Ashura told me I wasn't supposed to lie about this."

"We don't have to tell anyone else. It can be just between us. Like a game."

Yūi thought it sounded like a good game, but he knew he couldn't do it. There would be too much trouble for the king if anyone else found out about it. Too many people would think it was real. But Mielu was gazing at him with such happy eyes, and he really didn't want to disappoint her.

He was saved from refusing to play her game by the arrival of Virender.

"There you two are," Virender whispered to them. "Mother and Lady Kendappa have noticed you're missing. They've started looking for you. You'd better get back to the Hall real quick if you don't want to get in trouble. Where'd you go, anyway?"

"We visited the kitchens," Mielu piped up. "The cooks gave us some sweet nut pastries."

"Awww, why didn't you bring me along?" Virender said. He looked terribly disappointed to have missed out on the treats.

"We wanted to, but we didn't see you and we had to sneak away. There's a lot of people at court now."

"That's true," Virender agreed. "We'd better get back, before Mother and Lady Kendappa get mad."

"What about the king?" Yūi asked. "Has he noticed we're gone?"

Virender's eyes grew wide. "I don't know. I don't think so, not unless Mother or Lady Kendappa told him. But we'd really better get back. I don't want any of them mad at me."

Yūi wondered if King Ashura would really get mad, or if he'd just smile about it. Yūi knew that the king also liked to sometimes slip away, like that time he had taken Yūi into the mountains to see the castle. So Yūi thought the king would probably understand. But Yūi didn't say anything about that; it would be too much like a betrayal.

The three children went back into the Great Hall. The boring adults were still talking nonstop, and there seemed to be even more servants scurrying about now.

"I sure hope Mother isn't too mad," Mielu said glumly. "If she's already looking for us, she probably is, though."

"And don't forget Lady Kendappa," Virender said.

"She's as bad as Mother."

"Let's go find the king," Yūi suggested. "They won't yell at us if we're with him."

Mielu nodded enthusiastically. "That's a good idea, Fai. He's always nice to us."

"He's usually up at the front of the room," Virender said.

The trio wound their way through the nobles, furniture, and busy servants, but when they got to the dais it was empty.

"He must be nearby," said Virender.

Yūi spotted an elaborately coifed, dark head a little ways away to their right. "Uh, oh," he said. "There's Lady Kendappa."

"Maybe he's that way," said Mielu, pointing to the left side of the room.

Yūi scanned the crowd. King Ashura was tall, so he should be easy to find if he wasn't sitting down. He didn't spot the king, but while he was looking around he noticed a small commotion back at the entrance to the Great Hall. Then the crowd parted, and a tall man strode forward, trailed by a fine retinue of personal guards, a young wizard, and a number of highborn retainers. The newcomers paused just inside.

Yūi stared. He couldn't help it, but it was okay because everyone else was staring, too. The nobleman was riveting, with an overwhelming presence that commanded attention. His long hair was loose and reached past his waist. It was platinum blond, so pale as to almost be colorless. He was tall, even taller than the king, with a powerful build emphasized by perfectly tailored, pristine white clothes. His fine garments were trimmed with white fur, embroidered in silver, and glittering with aquamarines. A heavy silver and aquamarine chain gleamed on his broad shoulders. When he turned to speak to his retainers his billowing cloak swirled, displaying an intricate knotwork pattern of a griffin, worked in thick silver appliqué. Silver and aquamarines even bedecked his belt.

He had the face of a god, clean-shaven and flawless and utterly beautiful.

Something about him unnerved Yūi a great deal.

The nobleman's ice blue eyes swept over the aristocratic company. A faint smile touched his perfect lips, and he strode forward again with supreme confidence. The murmuring crowd flowed apart to clear a path for him. His escort remained behind.

"Who's that?" Yūi asked.

Mielu answered, "That's Lord Taishaku, the Lord of the Southlands." Her voice sounded awe-stricken.

"They call him the Griffin of the South," Virender put in. "He's a great hero."

Mielu's eyes shone, transfixed on Lord Taishaku. "He's so handsome."

Virender jeered, "Mielu's been in love with him forever."

"Shut up. I have not." Her light brown eyes flashed angrily, but then her gaze was irresistibly drawn back to the magnificent nobleman. "All the ladies think he's handsome, even Mother," she said defensively.

Virender poked his sister.

"Quit it," she said, slapping away his hand.

Yūi ignored the byplay and watched the silver nobleman. He noticed that the adults also watched Lord Taishaku, most with approving eyes, but many also mixed their admiration with an odd discomfiture. Mielu was right that the ladies all seemed to be fascinated with him, but despite what else she and Virender said, the general feelings about Lord Taishaku seemed mixed. Maybe the king's relatives just didn't feel nervous or intimidated by the lord because their rank was so high that no one ever dared threaten them. But Yūi understood why some of the courtiers felt nervous. He knew what it was like to feel threatened, despite the elevated position he'd been born into. He also knew the fear that came from the knowledge that no one wanted to protect him, that instead they'd be happy if he were dead or gone. That wasn't true anymore, he knew it wasn't, but he still couldn't stop those old feelings from returning.

Then Yūi looked in the direction the frightening lord was heading and finally found the king. "He's going to King Ashura," he said, and started moving in the same direction.

Lord Taishaku got to the king before the children. Yūi, Mielu, and Virender pushed through to the front of the crowd to watch the meeting.

The nobleman continued forward until he came face to face with the king. Then, instead of bowing like the other gentry, he went down on one knee in the most graceful genuflection Yūi had ever seen.

"My greetings, Your Majesty," said Lord Taishaku. Even his voice was beautiful, deep and resonant and powerful.

"Welcome, Lord Taishaku," King Ashura said, extending his hand to gesture the lord back to his feet. "Rise, my lord, and join us. Tell us of your latest victories against the Arimaspi raiders."

"Gladly, my liege." Lord Taishaku smoothly got to his feet, every bit as gracefully as he had knelt.

Yūi started as he felt a hand clasp his shoulder. He jerked his head up and found himself staring up at Lady Kendappa. But she wasn't scolding him, or even looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on Lord Taishaku and the king. Her features were carefully schooled into the same pleasant, serene mask that King Ashura wore.

Yūi wondered what it was about Lord Taishaku that had her on edge. Was she nervous like some of the whispering courtiers? Was her feeling the same as Yūi's? But Lady Kendappa wasn't afraid of anything!

And, indeed, when he looked beyond her show of serenity and focused on her eyes, he didn't see fear, just a bewildering combination of admiration and uneasiness. She frowned and gave her head a tiny shake, then she finally looked down at Yūi and his companions. "You three have led us a merry chase," she chastised them.

"We're sorry, Lady Kendappa," Virender said.

"It's my fault. I didn't know we were supposed to stay..." Yūi said.

Lady Kendappa lifted an eyebrow. "I can believe the king forgot to tell you the rules, Fai," she said, "but these two know better. Virender, Mielu, your mother is awaiting you by the dais. Go make your peace with her now."

They scampered off, grateful to have escaped Lady Kendappa. She finally smiled, saying, "Sybilla is ready to murder them. Where did you all go, Fai? We couldn't find you anywhere."

"I don't know where Virender went. We only joined him a little while ago. Mielu and I only went to the kitchens," Yūi said defensively. "No one's ever told me I couldn't go there before." He didn't mention that Mielu had explained that they weren't supposed to run off alone, hoping Lady Kendappa would keep assuming he hadn't known any better. "Is the king mad at me?"

"The king is the one who missed you and sent us searching. He's not angry, but there are a lot of gentlefolk and strange servants around right now who you don't know. You need to stay where we can keep an eye on you."

"Why? This is my home, isn't it?"

"Of course, Fai, but with so many people here, it makes us feel better to know where you are. All right? You don't want the king to worry, do you?"

Yūi shook his head. "No," he said softly.

"All right, then. I doubt it was your idea to run off, anyway. I'm sure Mielu was the instigator. She and Virender are quite a handful."

Yūi stayed silent. He didn't want Mielu to get into even more trouble.

Lady Kendappa's severe expression softened. "Never mind, Fai, as long as you know not to do it again. Your only real fault was that you didn't tell me or the king where you were going. Promise me you will do so in the future, and all will be well between us."

Yūi could do that. "I promise," he said.

She smiled at him. "Then let's go join Sybilla and your fellow truants." She took his hand and led him to the dais.


	27. Chapter 27

The next day the Sunbirth Festival officially began. It opened at noon with a very formal court in the throne room, something Yūi hadn't seen done before.

It was a day for grandeur. The king and Lady Kendappa had made sure he was dressed in his very best outfit. It was made of sumptuous materials of heavy, heavy figured silk in midnight blue, lined with more silk, trimmed with coal black sable and elaborately decorated with gold metalwork embroidery and even tiny, sparkling jewels. He really liked it, even though it was also the most uncomfortable outfit he now owned. With wonder, he stroked the thick fur on his sleeve then traced the shining, golden embroideries. His time as a ragged, pathetic prisoner seemed an eternity away. How things had changed! It was impossible not to think of Fai and wish he were here, too, but while the memories of his brother made him melancholy, for once they didn't make him cry.

Lady Kendappa and a full honor escort took him to wait outside the throne room with Lady Sybilla, Mielu, and Virender. While waiting for the court to begin, he peeked into the throne room. Nobles and magicians packed its space, all wearing magnificent clothes and glittering jewels, and buzzing with excited conversation. They filled both sides of the long, vaulted chamber, leaving clear only the center path to the high dais at the front. Bright magelights lit the white marble walls, and firepots glowing with mystical blue flames were placed on the dais steps. Open seats had been left on the floor on either side of the dais for the Council of Nobles, the court wizards, and the royal family. Centered atop the dais stood the throne, a remarkably uncomfortable looking chair carved from a solid block of pure white stone. Tall and high-backed, it was deeply engraved with swirling, spiraling designs and cushioned with white furs. To the right of the throne was a smaller, carved chair of ebony. It looked out of place next to the massive stone throne. Yūi thought that normally it wouldn't be there.

Yūi watched curiously as trumpeters on either side of the doorway bugled a short tune and the court murmured and turned to watch. The Council of Nobles, led by Lord Vainamoinen, walked past Yūi and filed into the throne room. They took their places on the right of the dais.

Lord Suhail and the other eleven court wizards were next. They all carried their staves of power, each unique and designed specifically for its wielder. The staves fascinated Yūi. Some were of metal, gold or silver or bronze, with intricate scrollwork and twists and projections, and glimmering with gems and mystical symbols. Others were simple, gnarled and wooden, and one even looked made of ivory or bone. The only commonality the staves shared was that they each held a large crystal that Yūi had been told was fluorite. One day soon, the king had once told Yūi, he would also possess such a staff, created especially for him. Yūi had asked what it would look like, and the king had said that that would depend entirely upon him. Yūi wondered how such a staff was made. He was sure it was by some form of magic.

Then it was the royal family's turn to enter the throne room. Yūi walked down the center isle with Lady Kendappa, Lady Sybilla, Virender, and Mielu. They all went to stand in front of the open seats left nearest the dais steps, himself and Lady Kendappa on the left, with Lady Sybilla, Virender, and Mielu on the right.

He was more accustomed now to having people stare at him and talk, but he still shifted in close to Lady Kendappa when so many eyes focused on him. Then the trumpets sounded again and everyone looked back to the massive entryway.

In shining raiment, King Ashura walked in with grace and immense regal dignity. He wore the royal colors of Seresu, white and sky blue and black. His belt was of pure gold. A long, flowing cape of white trailed behind him. Every item of clothing was trimmed with luxuriant white fur and heavily embroidered in gold and silver, the decorative metalwork glowing with jewels. Immense cabochon gems of a golden hue adorned his throat, chest, and sleeves, shimmering in the magical light that filled the throne room. His blue, mystical diadem floated just above his brow. He carried a tall, golden wizard's staff, topped with stylized, jeweled wings that were elaborately branched, elevated, and fully outstretched to cradle a massive, flawless, colorless fluorite crystal. To Yūi's young eyes, the king looked dazzling.

As dazzling and radiant as the very first time Yūi had ever seen him, when in a swirl of magic he'd come to save Yūi from the broken prison pit. By comparison, the king had been dressed simply then, and had looked so terribly sad, but to Yūi he had seemed the most beautiful, glorious, perfect being in all the universe.

To the king's left and a step behind, Tancred followed, carrying his own golden staff. Although Tancred was also gorgeously dressed, the king outshone him like the sun outshone a pale, half-formed magelight. How could it be otherwise? Yūi wondered.

Amid a wave of curtseys and bows from the assembled nobility, the King of Seresu and his heir walked forward through the center of the throne room, heads held high, posture straight and dignified. When they came to the dais, the king spared a glance for Kendappa and Yūi. Though his head didn't turn or even move at all, Yūi saw his eyes flicker to them. King Ashura's remote and serene expression didn't change, but for the quick and inconspicuous wink of one eye. Lady Kendappa appeared unmoved and radiated disapproval, but Yūi felt his own eyes widen. In all this impressive, overwhelming, and even crushing formality, the tiny break in protocol stood out like a nugget of gold amid dull, base rock. He cherished that gesture, and finally felt himself relax.

Then King Ashura and Lord Tancred ascended the dais. They turned, standing before the throne. With a sudden rustle of their heavy garments, they both sat in perfect unison.

A herald came forward and, in a booming, stentorious voice, announced that the Sunbirth Court was now in session. Finally, Yūi and everyone else could also sit down.

After spending almost three months in Seresu, Yūi knew that normally royal court sessions like this served a multitude of interesting purposes. The king would make and sign laws, hear cases of justice, hand out punishments and rewards, bestow honors and land grants, make decisions regarding the application of custom, deal with various problems his nobles brought to his attention, and a plethora of other important tasks. Children normally didn't attend, not even princes and princesses, unless some special business required their presence. Even then, they would only participate for the short time necessary before being returned to their tutors and caretakers.

However, King Ashura had explained to him that this court was different. It was held in honor of the most joyous time of the year, the coming of spring, and in due reverence most of the usual court functions and restrictions were suspended. As such, Yūi, Mielu, and Virender were expected to be present, and the nobles could bring their children if they were old enough to behave. Also, nothing that might be considered harsh would occur. In particular, there would be no justice heard and no sentences meted out, most especially no punishments. This court would just be ritual and ceremony, positive announcements, honors and awards, and, if absolutely necessary, only minimal business for those issues of the nobility that could not be delayed.

The court session went as the king had told Yūi it would. Boring ceremony and announcements. The nobles all wanted to celebrate and not think of troubles. As a result, they withheld all their business so even that activity didn't take place. The ceremonial was dull and nothing but talk, talk, talk, all in serious tones without even a touch of humor, but the court was very pretty, and Yūi liked pretty things. The courtiers all wore their best clothes and jewels, and Yūi passed the time surreptitiously admiring them and trying not to fidget too obviously. Then the king moved on to awarding honors.

Yūi tuned most of this out, as well...until the king called Lord Taishaku forward. Yūi came alert as the nobleman strode confidently to the foot of the dais and knelt. This time Lord Taishaku was attired all in black and gleaming gold, with bright sapphire jewels and a velvety black cloak, lined in blue silk and with his griffin emblem worked in gold on its surface. The striking colors made his pale, silvery hair seem to glow. His lips were curved into a pleased smile. Yūi stared at him, wide eyed, and again felt that same frisson of nerves that he'd experienced the other time he'd seen Lord Taishaku, only this time he thought he understood why.

After Lord Taishaku's very conspicuous arrival the previous day, Yūi had followed Mielu's example and done some eavesdropping on the various conversations in the Great Hall. He had learned that most of the nobles did appreciate Lord Taishaku for his strong defense of the border, but also that the warlord's arrogance and ambition, his power and wealth, and his utter ruthlessness disturbed many of them. A few wondered if he weren't as bad as the Arimaspi he fought so often. There was talk that he might take on a larger role in the country's governance, and that idea pleased some of the nobles but made others wary.

The king made a short but impressive speech about Lord Taishaku's unwavering courage, dedication, and loyalty in defending the border against the depredations of the Arimaspi raiders. Yūi barely heard it. He only watched Lord Taishaku and the way the nobleman kept his gaze locked on the king. It frightened Yūi. It seemed dangerous, like the focused, calculating look of a predator.

Why didn't the king see it?

Maybe the king did see it and just pretended not to see it. Yūi knew by now that the king was very, very good at pretending. Over the past months, Yūi had learned a lot about hiding his real feelings by watching and imitating the king. Besides, who would dare threaten the king?

King Ashura descended the steps to stand before Lord Taishaku. He touched the kneeling lord's shoulder with one hand. "And now," the king said in ringing tones that could be heard all through the throne room, "I bestow upon you an ancient and preeminent honor, the illustrious title of Ten, to be attached to your name so that all may know of your accomplishments and high status. Henceforth, you shall be Taishakuten, Lord of all the Southlands."

Yūi was distracted from his worry for a moment. The incorporation of honors into names was a peculiarity of Seresu that he had never encountered while he'd lived in Valeria, and it seemed very odd to him. He knew the highest wizards inserted their D title between their personal and house, family, or descriptive names. Now here was a different example of that strange naming practice. He had once asked the king why that was, but had been told that no one really knew where, when, or why the custom had originated.

King Ashura concluded by saying, "Lord Taishakuten, accept this token of our gratitude." The king then lifted a heavy gold chain from his own neck and placed it about Lord Taishakuten's shoulders.

"I accept gladly, Your Majesty," Lord Taishakuten said with a warm smile.

Then King Ashura grasped his shoulders, saying, "Rise, Lord Taishakuten," and raised him to his feet. He turned Lord Taishakuten to face the court.

Applause exploded and all assembled stood. There were even cheers. Yūi stood with everyone else and clapped dutifully. Lord Taishakuten, he could see, was greatly admired by all the nobility, despite the uneasiness many had exhibited the day before. The air of worry seemed to have evaporated for the ceremony. No one seemed wary of Lord Taishakuten the way Yūi was, at least not now. Maybe they just approved of the way Lord Taishakuten dealt with the Arimaspi. Maybe they just liked happy ceremonies.

King Ashura re-ascended the dais, and Lord Taishakuten returned to his seat. Everybody sat down again.

That award had been the last. The herald stepped forward and began to announce the closing of the formal court session.

He'd barely begun his long-winded spiel when a ruckus erupted near the entrance to the throne room. An old woman's voice rose, scolding someone and demanding admittance. The herald stopped attempting to speak when the king stood and called out, "Who breaks the peace of this court?"

Looking flustered, Lord Suhail hurried to stand before the dais. He bowed then said, "Majesty, if it pleases you, I believe I may know what goes forth. Please allow me to...to investigate."

King Ashura stared at him and said in a flat tone, "By all means, Lord Wizard."

Lord Suhail winced and moved quickly down the center aisle. Yūi and the rest of the court watched as he reached the doors and was shoved aside. He waved his arms and made some protests and entreaties, but the old woman's voice rose again, loudly and with utter disrespect, "Enough gabble, Suhail. Take me to this king of yours."

Defeated, Lord Suhail turned and offered his arm, only to have it slapped away. Seven women of various ages marched down the aisle toward the throne, led by the old woman who had overborne Lord Suhail.

The women were in tunic-style dresses, heavily embroidered with interlaced patterns of mystical symbols. Multiple necklaces of round fluorite beads hung about their necks, and they wore black lambskin belts and gloves. Their gloves were trimmed with fluffy white fur. Bulging pouches hung from the belts. Their shoes were tooled kid, decorated with brass knobs.

Each woman carried a wooden staff, adorned with gold fittings and dangling raptor feathers, and topped with polished fluorite spheres. They all wore blue or black cloaks, decked with gems and knotwork designs along the edges and hems. The cloaks reached down to their feet. The old woman who led the group was as tall as Lord Suhail. She wore the most elaborate cloak, in black with blue decorations. Her iron gray hair fell in a single braid down her back to her knees.

Lord Suhail kept pace with the leader, despite the occasional abuse she spat at him when he got too solicitous.

A murmur rose up in the court as the assembled nobles recognized the newcomers.

"The Völur..."

"What are they doing here—?"

"It's the Völur... They never come to court..."

Yūi craned his neck around and looked up at the dais. King Ashura was still standing, his eyes wide and disbelieving. He clutched one of his throne's armrests with one hand, and his staff in the other. Tancred had also risen and looked just as shocked.

Yūi felt a tap on his shoulder, and saw that Lady Kendappa and, indeed, the entire court were now also standing. He obediently rose and watched. Who were these women who could raise such a stir in a royal court without fear of any repercussions or reprisals? He'd heard the whispers naming them the Völur, but he only knew what his tutors had taught him, that they were wandering priestesses and mages, and very important to the country, especially for religious events like the Sunbirth Festival. He'd assumed they were like the wizards, but the reactions around him proclaimed that they were held in a different regard entirely.

By the time Lord Suhail and the Völur had almost reached the dais, King Ashura had regained his calm, serene façade. Carrying his staff upright, he stepped down to meet them on the floor. For a moment, they stood there, facing each other. King Ashura looked steadily into the lead Völva's eyes, then, with great deliberation, he bowed deeply to her. Yūi gaped at the spectacle, and knew he wasn't alone.

"My lady Völva," he said respectfully. "Your presence at court honors us all." He straightened again.

"Huh," she replied, looking him over from head to foot and back again. Yūi bristled at the insolence, but the king just stood quietly and allowed it. The court had gone utterly silent. Yūi wondered if anyone was even breathing.

"Yes, I see. Very well," she said incomprehensibly, and looked him over again. "Suhail, don't just stand there like a witless clod. Introduce us."

With an apology in his eyes, Lord Suhail bowed to the king. "Your Majesty, may I present to you the hierophant of this year's Sunbirth sacrifice, the Völva Ansu Bhagat."

"Bhagat?" King Ashura asked, glancing between Lord Suhail and the old Völva leader.

"My elder sister, Your Majesty."

The king raised his brows.

"Ashura of Vanir, King of Seresu," Ansu Bhagat intoned, drawing their attention back to her. "I bring you the greetings of the Völur."

King Ashura blinked, but said, "Thank you, my lady."

"Huh," she said again. "At least you're polite." She looked past the king, and for a brief moment her gaze met Yūi's before flicking away. He quailed at the calculating look he'd seen in eyes as gray as storm clouds and harder than granite, and edged closer to Lady Kendappa. He'd thought Lord Taishakuten was unnerving, but this old woman terrified him.

Ansu Bhagat snorted and shifted her focus back to the king. "I look forward to the King's Sacrifice, King Ashura, and to the affirmation of your connection to the land."

The king blinked again. "As do I, my lady. Sunbirth is always the highlight of the year."

"Huh," she said once more.

"My lady, there is a great feast after the conclusion of this ceremony. I, and my court, would be honored if you and your attendants would join us."

Ansu Bhagat pursed her lips, and nodded once. "We shall attend." Without waiting for a dismissal, she and the other Völur turned and marched right back out of the throne room, leaving the king, Lord Suhail, and the entire court staring stupidly after them.

The king traded a quick glance with Lord Suhail, who flinched ever so slightly. Then King Ashura went back to the throne, and Lord Suhail to his place with the court wizards.

King Ashura nodded to the herald to conclude the court. This time, there were no interruptions.


	28. Chapter 28

Ashura seriously considered getting drunk.

He sat at the high table, picking at his food and staring wistfully at his wine goblet. It was bad form to get drunk before the first course had even been completed. He watched the servants move among the rows of tables in the Great Hall, and discreetly eyed the old woman sitting on his right.

Ansu Bhagat. Currently, the most senior Völva in all the area encompassed by Luval: the castle, the town, and the surrounding forests and mountains.

The Völur never came to Luval Castle, and they never, ever participated in any of the royal court's social activities. Never.

And yet, here he sat at a feast with the Völva who would preside over the Sunbirth sacrifice. Six more important Völur sat at the table nearest the dais with the high nobility, all of whom looked somewhat taken aback at their surprise dinner companions. Didn't seem to dampen their appetites, though, Ashura noted sardonically before returning his attention to his unexpected and intimidating guests.

The Völur were at the castle. They had made a point of usurping the royal court just to give him a formal greeting, and had actually accepted his invitation to the feast. Unprecedented numbers of them had come to Luval this year for Sunbirth. The Völur, who were reputed to have insight into the doings of the gods themselves...

Something unusual must be going on this year.

He immediately wanted to smack himself for that asinine thought. What wasn't going on this year? Between his curse and his connection to the Dying God, his visions of the ultimate end of the world, Fai's horrific, shattering curses which would one day bring about that end, the insanely powerful sorcerer who desired that future, and the Witch of Dimensions, whose motivations were unknown...

Not to mention his own, vain suicide attempts.

Even though he was grateful that he had been given Fai and couldn't now imagine life without him, Ashura still wished he had succeeded in his original aim, at dying. He simply could not reconcile the two desires, both equally strong, and felt overcome with guilt regarding them. What would have become of Fai if the Witch had simply and immediately granted Ashura's stated wish to die instead of directing him to the prison pit in Valeria?

Yet, when Ashura looked out over the sea of reveling courtiers, the wizards and nobles in front, and at the back the servants, guards, and other common folk, he couldn't help but see his future murder victims. And any who survived his own depredations would be swallowed by Fai's second curse. Ashura had known many of these people since his childhood...

Now the Völur—members of a secretive religious order that to his knowledge had never shown even passing interest in the affairs of royalty or government—were displaying a special interest in him, his child, and his court.

And, on top of that, their chosen hierophant for the King's Sacrifice was none other than Ansu Bhagat, elder sister of the Lord Wizard Suhail D Bhagat, chief of Ashura's court wizards. How nice. How convenient.

The real question was why the Völur had suddenly taken an interest in the doings at Luval. What was going on in their convoluted minds? Did they have any inkling of the horrors to come? Was that why they were here, or was there something more brewing that he didn't yet know of? He wished they'd say outright, but of course that would never happen. Not with the Völur.

So, in light of all that, getting drunk seemed the wisest course of action he could possibly take.

A pity that he didn't dare. Until the Völur departed the feast, he needed to keep his wits about him. Or at the very least not make a drunken spectacle of himself.

Ansu Bhagat wasn't even a good dinner companion. Ashura could barely get two words out of her, and wondered why she and her sister Völur had even bothered attending. Maybe for the food? They were eating quite heartily.

Inoffensive small talk hadn't interested Ansu—in fact, she hadn't even attempted to disguise her disdain for it—but he'd noticed during her disruptive appearance at court that she was quite plainspoken. Perhaps she'd answer a direct question, rather than just ignore polite niceties. He turned toward her and tried again.

"My lady, forgive me for asking, but it's somewhat unusual for the Völur to participate in the royal court. May I ask why you've chosen to honor us so this Sunbirth?"

She stopped chewing and focused on him a gimlet eye. "My brother is your head wizard, and I was given the task of presiding over the King's Sacrifice at Luval this year. I decided to take that particular coincidence as a sign."

"A sign?" Ashura asked. This might actually be interesting. It might even provide some insight into his own predicaments. And if the Völur knew something, maybe they could help. He couldn't initiate talk of his problems, but if someone else already knew... "Of what, pray tell?"

"Of my fondness for my brother. Which is why I am visiting his home and have deigned to meet his king in a social context." With that, she tackled some roast venison and, to all appearances, ignored his presence entirely.

Ashura stared at her, then repressed a sigh and turned back to his own plate. Fine. He should have known better than to even try, let alone hope. The Völur weren't talking about their motivations for this break in their usual habit patterns. Why wasn't he surprised? As he'd told Vainamoinen a while back, no king ever got a straight answer out of any Völva. For anything. Even when one requested that they cast the runes and give advice, they tended to be cryptic and unhelpful. The more money they received for their services, the more cryptic they became. Or so it seemed to Ashura.

He stared longingly at his goblet. He couldn't risk getting drunk, but there were other possibilities. Maybe she'd be more forthcoming if he got her drunk, instead.

The problem with that idea was that she had been drinking as steadily as she had been eating and showed no signs whatsoever of being affected by the alcohol. She was probably using an anti-inebriation or detoxification spell. He used one himself on those occasions when he was expected to drink to excess yet wanted to keep his head.

He glanced down the table to where the children sat, and smiled at the pleasant distraction. Despite his somber personality, Fai always enjoyed his food. Today was no exception. Mielu and Virender sat by him, and all three children chattered among themselves. It pleased Ashura that they got along so well, and that his irrepressible niece and nephew didn't hold Fai's lack of cheer against him. They seemed to understand that Fai was still grieving. But at least they had managed to drag Fai into some mischief, something Ashura felt the boy sorely needed. Fai might not laugh or smile like other children, but he did seem to appreciate having some other youngsters around who weren't afraid to speak to him, as the servants' children were.

"An interesting child," Ansu remarked.

Ashura's eyes flew to the old woman. Had she actually addressed him? Shock gave way to a sudden wariness when he saw that her eyes were on Fai. "My lady?"

"The blond boy. I understand he's yours."

Not that rumor again. Ashura said flatly, "That is Fai. He is my foster son."

"Heh, don't get riled," she said. "Unlike the rest of these fools, I can tell there's no blood connection between you two. I know Vanir blood when I see it."

Ashura didn't think she was talking about seeing with her physical eyes.

Ansu said, "Most unusual. His magic is seated in the blue color of his eyes."

"What is unusual about his eyes being the source of his power?" he said, deliberately misunderstanding, and wishing she'd turn her attention to another topic. "It is so for many mages."

"Not his eyes, but their blue color," she explained with over-great, somewhat exasperated patience, as though to a complete lackwit, or to someone from whom she had expected better. "That is what is unusual. Although I expect very few make the distinction." She gave Ashura a penetrating look, catching and holding his eyes for a long moment. Then she released him and turned her gaze onto Fai again.

She'd only been talking to him for a minute, and Ashura was already getting a headache. That last look she had given him had almost seemed like a message to him, or maybe a test, but he had no idea what it could be about. And she seemed far too interested in Fai, and was investigating him too closely for Ashura's comfort. That was all he needed, another powerful magician of unknown motivations interested in Fai.

Ansu spoke again, "Not from this world, is he?"

"That is no secret, my lady." There was no denying it. Everyone in the castle knew that much of Fai's origins. Probably most of the country did by now, thanks to those accursed rumors. Ashura shouldn't be surprised that the Völur knew, as well.

"You broke your consecration oaths to bring him here," she said, staring at him again, this time with such great intensity that he wanted to squirm.

"I did," he confirmed defiantly.

Suddenly, a broad smile spread across her face. "Good for you." And she went back to eating her dinner and ignoring him.

Ashura definitely had a headache. And, it seemed, he also had another member of the Bhagat family approving of his world-walking to obtain Fai. First Suhail, and now his Völva sister.

Suhail, Ashura decided as he drained his wine goblet then held it out to be refilled by a passing servant, had a lot of explaining to do.


	29. Chapter 29

Ashura didn't get drunk at the feast, despite being sorely tempted. He limited himself to just two goblets of wine, switching to plain water afterwards. Ansu noticed and told him life was too short to be so abstemious, then laughed at his careful lack of reaction. After which she spent her time eating and drinking more than Ashura had believed possible for such an ancient crone.

The feast went on and on, minute by excruciating minute, hour by interminable hour. As was typical for such a large affair, courses were separated by periods of dancing and entertainments. It lasted over four hours, and as far as Ashura was concerned, it was one of the greatest trials of his life. Usually Ashura enjoyed these kinds of parties. He couldn't say that for this one. Old friends and acquaintances who might under normal circumstances come to speak a few words with him avoided the high table like the plague. The only people at the table were those who were required to sit there, and they engrossed themselves in conversations with their safest neighbors.

Even his relatives had deserted him. Tancred, on his left, uncharacteristically found everything his mother said to be of supreme interest and hung on her every word. Kendappa, who could usually manage a dozen tasks at once and still keep up polite conversations with at least four other people, now found supervising three well-mannered, well-behaved children to be a full-time occupation that required her complete and undivided attention.

Not that Ashura blamed them. In fact, if he could find some excuse to escape, he would. Instead, he feigned pleasure at the honor Ansu and her sister Völur had done him, all the while gritting his teeth and enduring. The worst part was that he suspected Ansu saw right through him and was amused by the whole thing.

By the last course he wondered how Ansu still managed to be conscious and coherent. By all rights, she ought to have eaten and drunk herself into a stupor, but she was as unaffected and bright-eyed as ever.

At last the final sweet was served, and the torturous feast was finally over. Ansu rose, and Ashura stood with her. He bowed over her hand. "It has been an honor, my lady," he said. He did not invite her and her fellow Völur to the evening entertainment. He was afraid they'd accept.

Ansu curtseyed deeply to him, shocking him into silence. He hadn't thought she even knew how to curtsey, let alone how to perform one so elegantly. She said, in polite and dulcet tones, "The honor has been mine, Your Majesty. You have been a most gracious host." Then she and the other six Völur swept out of the Great Hall as imperiously as they had out of the throne room earlier in the day.

Ashura just stared after them. He noticed that Suhail ran to catch up with his sister, and resolved to interrogate the chief wizard when he returned. It should prove to be an interesting, and hopefully enlightening, conversation.

Once the Völur were gone, Ashura found that he was no longer a social pariah. Several people came to speak with him about the Sunbirth entertainments and other polite niceties. They carefully avoided mentioning the Völur at all, although he was certain the entire court was discussing the holy priestesses among themselves enthusiastically enough. Kendappa, he noticed, still kept her distance, using the children as her excuse.

Everyone moved out of the way to allow the servants to break down the dining tables and set up for the evening social activities. Ashura drifted out into a corridor and caught Suhail as the wizard returned. Suhail grinned at him, looking unaccountably pleased.

"Majesty, she liked you!" Suhail said without prompting.

"What?" Ashura asked. "What are you talking about?"

"My sister. She said she liked you."

"She...liked me." This revelation stunned Ashura. He'd been under the impression that Ansu had barely tolerated him.

"She found your patience and forbearance quite admirable."

"Did she?" Ashura felt his headache returning. He restrained himself from rubbing his forehead, but it took an incredible effort.

"She also thinks you're a great improvement over your father."

A rather startling pronouncement, all things considered. "And when did she ever grace my father's table with her august presence?"

"Never. That's the point."

"Suhail," Ashura said with a touch of asperity, "then how can she possibly know I'm any kind of improvement?"

"She had encountered him, Majesty," Suhail pointed out. "Many times."

Ashura didn't recall that at all. "When?"

"During the King's Sacrifice at a number of Sunbirth Festivals. She may not have been the hierophant, but she attended often."

"The king barely speaks any words at all to the Völur during that ritual," Ashura protested.

Suhail shrugged. "That is irrelevant to the Völur, Your Majesty."

Ashura gave up on that line of questioning. It wasn't getting anywhere, it was making his headache worse, and it hardly mattered much, anyway. He moved on to a topic that worried him more. "Can you at least tell me why your sister was so interested in Fai?"

The chief wizard looked surprised. "I doubt she had much interest in him beyond his relationship to you, Majesty."

Impatience and more exasperation rose in the king. "Lord Wizard, the longest conversation I had with her was about Fai. She knew I retrieved him from another world, and all about how his power is seated in the blue color of his eyes. She made a great show of pointing all that out to me."

"Perhaps she was more interested in your reactions and responses than she was in your foster son."

That idea displeased Ashura greatly, but he considered it. Worried about the Völur's unusual interest in the court, he had kept a careful eye on Ansu and her sisters from their first appearance that day. He pondered his observations, recalling that Ansu had given Fai no more than a single look in the throne room and at the time had appeared amused rather than intrigued. At dinner, she hadn't mentioned Fai or even so much as glanced at him until she noticed Ashura watching him. That was when she had started her probing. And she had never approached Fai, or even asked to meet him.

So it did appear that she had used Fai primarily as a conversational tool to rattle Ashura's nerves. From what he could tell, the primary purpose seemed to have been to get him to make that admission about breaking his consecration oaths. He ground his teeth for a moment, then he stilled his jaw, remembering that Ansu had demonstrated approval of his actions.

None of that was reassuring; it only reinforced his conviction that something unusual was brewing within the sacred sisterhood. Nor did it mean she had no special interest in Fai, only that she was capable of pretending that her interest was casual. And then, Ashura reflected, there was her uncomfortable and unusual interest in him, as well.

He finally gave in and allowed himself to rub his throbbing temples. "Suhail, can you at least tell me what's going on with the Völur? Why are there so many of them at Luval this year? And why—? Suhail, they never come to court unless summoned. And even then they only come with reluctance. They never come of their own volition, and never just to socialize. Didn't your sister tell you anything?" He heard his voice rising, saw Suhail's widening eyes, and shut his mouth before he started yelling.

"She is not in the habit of confiding in me regarding Völur business," Suhail said stiffly.

"Didn't you think to ask?"

Suhail pokered up even more. "One does not ask the Völur such things."

"But you're her brother..."

"Majesty, you must understand that the Völur release themselves from all family and social bonds when they take their vows. Their only obligations are to their religious order. Surely you of all people must understand the weight of sacral oaths."

Ashura winced, and covered it by rubbing his temple. Had that been a thinly veiled reference to the way he had broken his? Suhail must be feeling cornered to make such an attack. Well, and so he should. The wizard clearly knew he was treading on thin, fragile ice.

Suhail said, "The Völur keep their own secrets very well. Ansu did tell me openly that because she was presiding over the King's Sacrifice this year, and because I was your chief wizard, she felt that she could break with the usual conventions and come to meet with us both in a social setting."

Ashura made a noncommittal noise. That was the same farradiddle Ansu had told him, as well. At least she was consistent.

"Aside from that, Majesty, they have told me nothing I can share with you, and given me no insight that I can impart to you. I am deeply sorry, Majesty."

Ashura recalled Ansu's brusque manner with her brother in the throne room, and also the abrupt way she and her sister Völur had departed the feast. It did seem likely that she kept Suhail at arm's length on such topics. With resignation, he accepted that he would get no useful information out of Suhail.

"By your leave, Your Majesty," Suhail said with bow.

Ashura nodded, and watched the wizard depart. He wasn't sure he believed Suhail really knew as little as he claimed. The chief wizard was overly fond of word games, and could be as duplicitous as any foreign ambassador. It was one of the things about Suhail that aggravated Ashura, even while he admitted that doublespeak was a useful political device and possessed no little skill at it himself. However, at present Ashura had neither the time nor the patience to unravel and reassemble conversational knots and puzzles, so there was nothing to be done about whatever ambiguity might be lurking in Suhail's statements. Maybe once the Völur departed after the King's Sacrifice, Suhail would be more forthcoming.

But Ashura doubted it.

In the meantime, Ashura's headache was killing him. He headed back to his apartments in the royal wing. He had a servant run to the apothecaries' workshop to get him something to alleviate the throbbing in his skull, and then collapsed in a chair before the fire.

He really should have gotten drunk, he decided.

It wasn't too late for that particular remedy. Feeling too lazy to physically bestir himself, he instead levitated a silver pitcher of wine and a goblet to him. His headache increased at the trivial exercise of magic. Maybe he should have gotten up and fetched the things manually, he thought as he filled the goblet and swallowed down half of its contents. He refilled the goblet again, then set both it and the pitcher on the table next to the chair and closed his eyes. Just a few minutes rest, a few minutes without worrying about anything, before he had to go be on show again...

A knock on his door jolted him to wakefulness just as he was drifting off. He muttered a few choice imprecations, then thought rather hopefully that perhaps it was the servant with his headache potion. "Enter," he called.

Kendappa strolled in, holding a cup. "I believe you wanted this?" she said in a chirpy voice that sent daggers through his pounding head. "A headache, is it? That's not unexpected, considering the company you've been keeping. Poor Ashura."

He winced and would have cursed her roundly had she not been followed by Fai. Ashura would not set such a bad example as swearing at his cousin, even if she did deserve it. He wordlessly held out his hand.

Kendappa grinned at him, sketched a curtsey, and gave him the cup. The liquid within smelled of pungent medicinal herbs. Perfect. He downed it all in one long draught.

"That must be quite some headache, cousin," Kendappa said. Her eyes fell on the wine pitcher and full goblet. "I suppose there's more than one way to kill the pain."

"Thank you, Kendappa." The throbbing was already easing slightly. Even that tiny improvement was a relief. Not as much as getting drunk would have been, but he'd settle. "I'm pleased we have such excellent apothecaries in the castle."

"Working already, is it? How unusual. I rather imagine the wine is helping, too."

"I only had half a glass," Ashura said defensively. He could always get drunk later, during the evening sport. Everybody else would drink to excess; they'd never notice.

"That's just as well. Else you'd have a headache tomorrow, too."

"I do know how to use detoxification spells, Kendappa," he said, exasperated by the badgering. "Perhaps my headache wouldn't be so bad if I'd had some congenial company available to make dinner go more agreeably."

"You did fine," came the unrepentant reply. "Besides, I doubt that old priestess would have deigned to speak to anyone but you during the feast. She put on grander airs than your grandmother!"

His grandmother had been a bit pretentious, even for a queen, Ashura reflected.

His gaze fell on Fai, who had remained silent during the exchange. The boy was staring at him with one of those worried looks of his. What was bothering Fai now? Was this bickering disturbing him for some reason? No, it had never seemed to upset him before, and there really wasn't much of anything different about it now. Had someone said something to distress him during dinner? Ashura supposed some churl had made an ill-considered remark within the child's earshot.

"Fai," he said, "is something wrong?" Fai stared down at the rug, so Ashura looked to Kendappa. "Is it those thrice-cursed rumors again?"

Before she could answer, Fai looked up into Ashura's face and blurted out, "What is the King's Sacrifice?" His voice sounded anxious, and he had clasped his hands together so tightly the knuckles showed white.

Oh, that. Yes, Ashura supposed the name of that rite could sound ominous to someone who had never seen it before. He realized he'd never thought to explain it to Fai. It was just another ritual he had either attended or performed every year of his life, and it had never occurred to him that Fai might be upset by it.

"Oh, that," Kendappa unknowingly echoed Ashura's first thought, but in tones of profound disgust.

"What is it?" Fai asked again, staring at Ashura. "What's going to happen? What are you going to do? Mielu and Virender said... They said you're going to cut your wrist...so it bleeds, and..."

Kendappa let out a most unladylike snort. "They're right, Fai. He's going to bleed on the dirt."

"Kendappa," Ashura said reprovingly.

She looked defiant. "It's the truth. Stupid peasant ritual."

"I thought you were a believer."

"This I can do without. There's something about this ceremony that makes me uneasy."

"What, seeing me shed blood? I always thought you liked that part," Ashura teased her.

She glared at him, not amused at all. "The whole thing bothers me."

"You've never mentioned this before."

"Would it have mattered? You're obligated to do it, so what's the point of protesting?"

"You're really going to bleed?" Fai interrupted, looking even more upset and wringing his hands. "You have to?"

"Only a little, Fai," Ashura said, chastising himself for his thoughtlessness. This was not the time to bicker with Kendappa. He tried to explain, "There's a very ancient belief in this country that the king and the land are connected. The King's Sacrifice publicly reaffirms that connection. My blood is supposed to feed and sanctify the land by becoming one with it. I've done this every year since I became king. There's nothing to it." He hesitated, thinking of the ritual. This was another of those religious duties that he'd always taken for granted, always assumed was purely ceremonial. But it wasn't just a small bit of religious theater, was it? It was real.

He'd learned the hard way not so long ago that his religious duties were far too real. Even his curse was another of those religious roles; by his ancestors' beliefs, it was the most important of those roles. However horrifying he found it.

Affirming his connection to the land also affirmed the power and purpose of that curse.

And while the formal name of the sacrifice, the King's Sacrifice, might only carry the ordinary religious significance to others, it served to forcibly remind him of the ultimate fate that awaited any Sacral King afflicted with that curse, and the horrific fates of his subjects—or rather, his victims. The rite's name could easily be interpreted to refer to both...

It was, he realized, a holdover from those dark, ancient days before knowledge of the royal curse had been lost.

Then he gave himself a mental shake. He was a fool, affrighting himself with unwonted worries and silly paranoia. These days the ritual was nothing out of the ordinary; it was just a seasonal celebration. He had performed it many times before, and Fai clearly needed some reassurance. Ashura held out his arm, pulling back his sleeve to display the thin, inner skin of his wrist. "I will just make a small cut here on my wrist—little more than a nick, really—and let a few drops of blood fall onto the ground. Then Lady Ansu, as the presiding priestess, will put a few dots of the blood on my face and heal my wrist. Everything will be fine."

Fai stared at Ashura's arm. "That's really all?"

"That's really all," Ashura confirmed, letting his arm fall. "At least for my part. Lady Ansu will officiate at the ceremony, and the rest of the Völur will handle all else. There will be many people there to witness the rite, and a lot of drumming and chanting to raise and direct mystical power, but that is nothing that should worry you. When it is over, the Völur will immediately leave Luval, and everyone else will return home to celebrate. We do this every Sunbirth."

"When do you have to do this?"

"On the first day of spring, two days hence." Ashura considered Fai for a moment. He seemed easier now, but given his history, the King's Sacrifice might not be the best activity for him to witness. At least not so soon. "You don't have to attend, if you don't wish to."

"Virender said everyone has to go."

Everyone in the immediate royal family, Ashura corrected silently. He wasn't about to say that out loud to Fai and either hurt the child or trigger his insecurities again. Besides, since Fai was Ashura's foster son, it could be argued that he was, in fact, a member of the royal family. Of course, it could also be argued that he wasn't. Never mind that everyone treated him as though he was.

Which, Ashura reflected, implied that everyone most likely assumed that Fai would attend, and would therefore be surprised and possibly even offended if he didn't.

"Do you wish to go?" Ashura asked, willing to ignore convention and public opinion, and let Fai make his own decision. "I say again that you need not attend if you don't wish it. It will be outdoors, deep in the Silvalfar Forest on the other side of Luval Town. There is an ancient, open sanctuary there that is used for this ceremony." He smiled and added another warning: "It will also likely be quite cold."

"I'll go," said Fai with a determined air.

Above all, the child had a stout heart. That quality always shone through in every task Fai undertook, despite how he had almost been broken by his own family. Ashura once more cursed the Valerian kinsmen who had tried so hard to destroy Fai, but thankfully had failed in that effort. He certainly would have liked to have a word with them. A pity—or not—that none of them still lived. He leaned forward and ruffled Fai's hair. "Very well. However, you may change your mind—"

"I won't." Fai's look of determination became even more pronounced.

Fondly, Ashura smoothed the blond hair he had just mussed. "You're a good child," he said quietly. With a deep sigh, he stood up. "We had best be getting back to the Hall."

"True," Kendappa said. "The entertainment won't start without you, and everybody will be rather annoyed."

"They'll get over it after they've had enough wine," Ashura said sourly, and cut himself off. He shouldn't say things like that in front of Fai.

"What is the show tonight?" Fai asked, fortunately more interested in flashy amusements than in how much wine nobles could drink.

Kendappa said, "We've engaged a troupe of acrobats. It should be interesting."

"Oh," Fai breathed, sounding entranced.

Ashura thought it perfectly reasonable that an evening of acrobats should take precedence in a young boy's mind over a scary sounding ritual that was still two days off. He took Fai's hand, and offered Kendappa his free arm. "Let's not keep the acrobats waiting," he said.

"And the courtiers?" Kendappa asked archly, entwining her arm with his.

"Them, either." He guided his cousin and foster son out the door.

"How is your headache, cousin?" Kendappa didn't even bother to hide her smile.

"Improving," Ashura replied shortly. It shouldn't get any worse, at least. The Völur had left and, with luck, he wouldn't encounter them again until the King's Sacrifice. After the acrobats were done, Fai would go to bed and Ashura could finally get drunk, although that option was becoming less and less desirable.

Maybe he wouldn't get drunk, after all.

That night, after the festivities had concluded and the court had retired, he again dreamed of the river of blood.


	30. Chapter 30

The next two days passed far too rapidly, as far as Yūi was concerned. Or not rapidly enough. Yūi couldn't decide.

He hid his apprehension about the King's Sacrifice and pretended everything was fine, because that seemed to make King Ashura happy. And really, nobody else seemed worried about it. Lady Kendappa had made it clear that she didn't like it, but she certainly wasn't brooding over it, either. Virender and Mielu, the pair who had bluntly explained the mechanics of the ritual to him after that old priestess had mentioned it during the formal Sunbirth court, also didn't seem concerned. They just said they saw it every year and that it wasn't a big deal. They said it was actually kind of boring.

But Yūi wasn't bored. He didn't want to see the king bleed, even if it was only a few drops of blood. The idea upset him. He didn't want to think of the king as mortal.

He didn't want to lose the king, like he'd lost Fai, like he'd lost his mother. Sometimes he had bad dreams where he saw King Ashura die, just like he'd seen Fai die. Sometimes, in his dreams, he saw King Ashura stick a sword into his own throat right in front of him, just like the Valerian sovereign had done in reality, and bleed to death, gasping in the ice and snow.

So he really didn't want to ever, ever, ever see King Ashura bleed.

Still, he would not accept King Ashura's offer for him to miss the ceremony. If the king had to bleed, Yūi wanted to be there so he could make sure that the king wouldn't die. It didn't make sense, and Yūi knew it didn't make sense, but it was just the way he felt.

Yūi realized he felt protective of the king, which he knew was absurd considering that the king was the strongest magician in Seresu. Well, King Ashura said that Yūi was more powerful, and Yūi knew it must be true because he felt no compulsion from his curse to kill the king. However, Yūi was still learning basic control over his magic, so he didn't really think he counted yet.

King Ashura was also the most closely guarded person in the entire country. None of his people would let him die if they could help it. That fact didn't reassure Yūi one bit. He knew that the king sometimes went off on his own without guards. After all, the king had left his own world to find Yūi, and then later had taken Yūi to see the castle from the mountains. Yūi knew perfectly well that the king's guards couldn't protect him if he chose to leave them behind.

Fortunately, most of the time the king did not try to escape his protectors. Except for the rare occasions that Yūi knew about, the king either stayed in the castle, even if he did sometimes like to hide in his office, or he took an escort when he left the castle.

None of the people that normally protected the king seemed worried about the King's Sacrifice. So Yūi knew he shouldn't be worried, either. But he couldn't help it. And so he pretended that he was okay and that it didn't bother him, fretted in secret, and did his best to enjoy the many diversions offered by the Sunbirth court.

It was a long two days, but finally, the dreaded day arrived.

The procession began before sunrise, when the eastern horizon had barely started to lighten and many stars still twinkled overhead. Yūi knew the whole floating mountain was cloaked in illusion spells, that the visible stairs and suspended bridges didn't really exist, that there were other means of access that were hidden to any unwanted visitors. More magic would make the real route impossible for an attacker to utilize, destroying the concealed bridges, slicking the stone stairways, even setting fire to the snow itself should a foe manage to pierce the disguising illusions. The people who had originally built the castle had had something very important to protect, and those who came after them had maintained and enhanced the enchantments, adding more and more layers of protective and defensive spells with each passing generation.

The king himself led the way through the illusions that cloaked the path. He took Yūi's hand and started down, the rest of his family walking directly behind him. All the nobles followed along those hidden suspension bridges to the staircases and walkways deeply hewn into rocky cliffs, accompanied by many of their retainers and guards, an escort of the king's soldiers, and a large portion of the castle staff. Those left to watch over the castle and prepare for the later festivities actually sounded disappointed to remain behind as they waved and called farewells.

It was a long way down on foot.

It was also very, very cold, and a brisk wind cut through the air. Yūi gripped the king's hand tightly through his heavy gloves, and with his free hand pulled his warm, furred cloak closer about himself. The first day of spring was something of a disappointment, as it looked and felt no different than the previous days of winter. Luval Castle and Town were, after all, situated in the Riphean Mountains. King Ashura had told him before that the snow and ice never thawed this high up.

The procession came down into an enormous bailey, fully garrisoned and surrounded by thick curtain walls of stone. Within this enclosure was what amounted to a small, self-contained town, with wells and stables and smithies, barracks and cookhouses and barns, penned livestock and food warehouses, armories, and everything else an army needed to hold a defense.

Grooms had already saddled horses and stood waiting. The king mounted a pure white steed, and took Fai up before him. Lady Kendappa rode a little behind them on a spirited chestnut gelding. The royal family, the nobles and court wizards, the rich commoners, and the military officers were mounted, while the soldiers and other commoners either walked or followed along in horse, mule, or ox-drawn wagons. The horses were held to a walk so everyone could keep pace.

The heavy gate doors were already wide open. The double sets of iron portcullises rattled upward, opening the massive gatehouse to the outbound traffic, and the entourage moved out onto the road that led to Luval Town.

The sky lightened to blue-gray with pink and orange glowing above the mountains. The last of the stars faded from sight. With a hushed voice, the king pointed out snow-covered landmarks and various species of alpine scrub to Yūi. The low bushes were gradually replaced by scraggly, sick-looking mountain pines as the strangely quiet procession reached the tree line. From there the vegetation thickened, becoming more green than brown, and the trees grew more diverse, and taller and healthier, so that they formed an honest forest. A multitude of birds chirped and fluttered among the branches, and the sounds of small creatures rustled in the underbrush.

After a while, the tidy buildings of Luval Town came into view. Yūi already knew it to be a prosperous place, with a great many shops and businesses. The streets had been cleared of snow and ice, so that the town's bustling traffic could proceed unimpeded. The people were well dressed in bright colors and appeared happy with their lot in life. It seemed to him that most of the town's population now lined the main road, silently and expectantly, as though waiting for something special.

And he realized, as the royal procession passed through the town, that all those people really had been waiting. They had been waiting for the king, and now they joined the column that followed after him. Yūi leaned to the side and craned his neck around, gaping open-mouthed behind him at the long train of people and animals and wagons. He had never seen the like.

"Fai," the king murmured, and Yūi turned to face forward again.

The King's Sacrifice must be a very important ritual to have all these people coming, Yūi thought. And all so serious and solemn. He'd expected that so large a group would be chattering noisily among themselves, but there was only quiet murmuring. The king wasn't even talking to Lady Kendappa. Only the animals made loud, normal, everyday sounds, interrupted here and there by a child's high-pitched voice, quickly hushed by a parent. Yūi wanted to ask questions, but felt too intimidated and so kept silent.

The eerie, funereal quality of the procession brought back all his previous concerns about the ritual. If so many people hadn't reassured him so many times before, he'd have thought everyone was coming to witness a death...

No... To witness a sacrifice...

It was just a few drops of blood, Yūi told himself, and stared resolutely forward at a spot between the horse's flicking ears. Seeking reassurance, he leaned a little into the living support at his back, to feel the king's comforting, solid warmth and presence. It was just that this ritual meant so much to these people. That was all. King Ashura had told him Sunbirth was the most important festival of the year.

But why would a few drops of the king's blood be so important?

The sky turned blue as the sun's cold, yellow rays lit the mountains and caused shadows to shift among the crags. The procession passed out of the town, and turned onto a road that led into the thick forest. Snow carpeted the ground. Shafts of light broke through the branches, sparkling on the ice and revealing green shoots emerging from the frozen, white blankets.

Very softly, the king identified some of the trees for Yūi: pine, and mountain ash, and birch with trunks of gleaming, papery white bark. The frost-rimed branches weren't bare or dead; instead Yūi saw that they bore bright green buds and tiny fresh leaves. It all smelled crisp with the cold, but also with undertones of earth and new growing things. Spring really had arrived, even in the mountains, even amidst all the ice and snow.

In the distance, Yūi now noticed a deep, thunderous pounding that echoed through the trees. He recognized it as the sound of many drums, weaving a tapestry of driving rhythms that got into the blood and burned with wild joy. He could feel the building anticipation from everyone in the procession, a thing that was almost as palpable as the beating percussion.

As the king's procession drew closer, Yūi heard singing voices threading in and out of the drumbeats, a multitude of women chanting words he couldn't understand in a haunting melody that made him shiver. He could feel power rising, the power of earth, the power of life and death.

"The Völur," King Ashura said quietly, his breath whispering against Yūi's ear. "This is what they truly are."

This was why they were respected, and venerated, and feared. Yūi gnawed his lip and gripped the saddle pommel hard. They weren't like the wizards, not at all. They weren't like ordinary magicians, or normal religious priestesses. They were different. Their power was different. He could feel it. It made him wonder if they really could intercede with gods.

As the entourage approached, the music became louder, and more complexities could be discerned. Parts of the song reminded Yūi of the song the king had sung when he'd encased Fai in crystal and sunk him deep in the sacred pool of the castle shrine. Rattles provided a relentless background accompaniment to the drums and voices. Yūi saw faint auras of pastel colored flame around all the trees and plants, animals and people. Cottony, glowing magic rose out of the very earth like soft puffs of mist. Translucent wisps of fire reached out, bled into each other and joined, tangling everything and everyone together in a complex web of enchantments.

Despite the clear signs of the spells the Völur were weaving with their music, no one present said anything about the magic rising all around them. Yūi didn't think anyone else could see it. Even the king couldn't see the magic in the castle shrine, and to Yūi this magic that the Völur called forth from the earth looked and felt very similar. Yūi looked down at his gloved hands, and didn't see any of the gossamer threads that bound everyone and everything else. The magic wasn't touching him...

For the first time since he'd come to Seresu, Yūi really understood that he was different. Not different like the Völur, but different.

Still, Yūi knew that he wasn't alone in his awareness of the magic; he knew the king also felt it. King Ashura might not be able to see the castle shrine's magic, but he could always feel it, and from the tension in the way he held himself at Yūi's back now, Yūi could tell that the king felt the rising spells around them. Yūi glanced up at him, but the king's demeanor was as composed and serene as ever. He didn't seem disturbed, and Yūi remembered that this was nothing new to the king or these people, that they experienced it every year. Yūi found that idea comforting.

The woods suddenly gave way to a wide, round clearing that had been swept free of snow to display the barren ground beneath. The shadow-wreathed forest canopy was replaced by an open sky arching overhead like a brilliant blue dome. The bright, sunny daylight reminded Yūi that it was now midmorning, even though the dim lighting among the trees had made it feel like dusk. Forested hills and the rugged mountains rose behind the clearing in a dramatic backdrop. In its center stood a heap of large, crumbling stones, piled atop one another to form a roughly even mound.

All around the clearing the Völur waited and spun their restless haze of magic. Hundreds of them, in blue and black cloaks, some wearing glimmering jewels, most carrying decorated wooden staves. The women in front sat on the ground pounding drums of various sizes, their staves resting beside them. Others shook rattles, and all were chanting in eerie, singsong tones that sometimes rose and crashed like ocean waves, then fluttered and drifted as lightly as snowflakes. In front of the stone heap stood Ansu Bhagat, flanked by two other priestesses of indeterminate age. One of those priestesses held two staves, her own and Ansu's. Something long and dark and sharp glinted like black glass in Ansu's hands.

Behind Yūi, the king stiffened. Yūi looked up at him and saw his eyes survey the imposing scene. "So many," King Ashura murmured in quiet disbelief. He took in a deep breath and pressed his heels against his horse's flank, gently nudging the beast forward.

What reassurance Yūi had felt just a few moments earlier evaporated at the king's surprised words. Maybe this wasn't like the usual ceremony these people held every year.


	31. Chapter 31

Death rites were always sung. Ashura had sung them himself, many times, for Fai's brother, for his own, for his dead wife and sons, for his parents...and he knew from the old, hidden accounts that his curse-afflicted ancestors had been sung into the earth after they were sacrificed.

So perhaps he really shouldn't be surprised that elements of the songs the Völur sang for the King's Sacrifice should resemble the songs of eternal farewells.

What should surprise him, he knew, was that he'd never noticed before.

Of course, before this year he hadn't known the significance of the rite. He hadn't realized that it wasn't just religious theater, that it wasn't just an old, primitive ritual to ask the gods for blessings and peace and a good growing season, to invest the king's luck and life into the land. He hadn't realized that it was also a symbolic representation of a human sacrifice.

A mage's power always returned to Seresu in death. That was well known. Confronted with the impending rite, he was struck by the sudden understanding that the mad king's sacrifice wasn't solely a defensive tactic to prevent his continued depredations; it also surrendered all the stolen blood-magic back to Seresu. In the ancient past, the sacrificed kings had always been sung into the land, an act that demonstrated the restoration of the power before witnesses. The power would rise anew with the country's people and prosperity. It was an unending cycle of blood, death, and rebirth. Everything was linked. Everything...

The real meaning of the ritual had been lost to antiquity. The last true sacrifice of a king had been over two thousand years ago. That was the fate of any king afflicted with the divine madness, as it was the fate of those around him to be murdered by him first.

Was that who the other celebrants represented? The king's murder victims, who provided sacrificial blood and power to protect the country? Or the survivors who had been saved and then witnessed the sacrifice of the mad king? Perhaps both. What, Ashura wondered, had been in the minds of this ritual's creators?

He handed the reins of his horse over to a groom and dismounted, then lifted Fai from the saddle and set him onto the ground. The child's eyes were large and his complexion pale as he looked around. Ashura again wondered at the wisdom of bringing Fai to this ceremony. Fai had wanted to come, but...but this time there was something different, something wild and unpredictable that Ashura couldn't identify.

It wasn't just the shockingly large number of Völur present, although that was certainly part of it. It was the primal feel of the whole thing, of the charged atmosphere, of the feral, primordial magic the priestesses' songs raised. Of something deep inside his soul that answered to their call...

That had never happened before.

Resolutely, he took Fai's hand and walked to the spot where the royal family always stood. His relatives followed and took up positions on either side of him. The nobility stood nearby. The sacred songs and enchantments burned like wildfire in his blood, swallowing his consciousness, his whole being, so that he barely noticed the rest of his people moving around the sanctuary to take up positions behind the lines of Völur.

Then, when everyone had settled, the music ceased on an abrupt note. Silence descended like the stroke of a blade.

Ansu Bhagat stepped forward two precise paces, lifted her face and arms to the sky, and began her solo chants and incantations. The words were ancient, in the old tongue few could understand, and ultimately unimportant. What was important was that all assembled knew they basked in the presence of the divine. The aura and power filling the holy sanctuary caught and held all minds, all souls, weaving them together into one united people. Ansu punctuated her chant with a final thrust of her arms to the sun. The obsidian dagger in her right hand flashed, throwing off black sparks in the bright midmorning light. Then she lowered her arms and cradled the dagger with both hands.

A single drum broke the reverent silence, thumping steadily like a heartbeat. Rattles joined it, shaking double-time to the drummer's even cadence. Voices again rose, the voices of the Völur, singing the songs of sacrifice. More drums entered the song, throbbing, deafening...

Ansu turned slightly to gaze evenly into Ashura's eyes. He started to move forward, and realized with a start that he was still holding Fai's hand. He tried to let go. Fai clung to him, but with gentle insistence Ashura pulled his hand free. His eyes never left the priestess's face.

He took another step forward, keeping his gaze locked with Ansu's. He couldn't look away, even though he heard Fai make a small noise and knew the child was afraid for some reason. He didn't know why. Everything was as it should be.

Ashura reached up and unclasped his cloak, letting the fur-lined fabric slither away from his shoulders. He stripped off his gloves, then bent to remove his boots and stockings, and left the discarded items with his cloak.

Lastly, he took a deep breath, lifted a hand before his face, and banished the mystical diadem from his brow.

Even though he was barefoot, gloveless, and without his cloak, he didn't feel the cold. It couldn't reach him now. It was a part of him now, like the land, like the people. They were one.

He moved forward, step by measured step, pacing the length of holy ground that separated him from the Priestess and the Sacral Knife. Drums, rattles, and singing voices filled his ears. The Priestess, the knife, and the stone altar filled his vision. He felt the living power of the earth, of Seresu itself, thrumming in his bare feet, a true and direct connection to the land. The power rose up through his body, filling him with its numinous presence.

He stopped and stood before the Priestess. For a long moment they stared at one another, King and Hierophant, united in their ancient purpose.

The Priestess spoke words then, words that rose over even the drums, rattles, and chanting Völur. Words that the King despised, and was powerless to protest. Although in his altered state of awareness he barely heard the words, barely understood them, a small part of him knew he loathed them. That part of him screamed and beat against the walls that caged it somewhere in a tiny corner at the back of his mind, but the rest of him was caught by the ritual and the music, by the power rising, rising, rising, and didn't care about anything else. And then the Priestess spoke the final words, the words burned into his soul...

She raised the knife to the bright blue sky, to the reborn sun, crying out, "The King and the Land are One!" Then she lowered her arms and extended the knife to the King. "_Til árs ok friðar!_ For fertility and good health. For a good life and peace and harmony between the people and the divine powers. For the prosperity and joy of the land. Feed the land and affirm your connection to it and all it supports, King of Seresu."

He made the ritual response, but he scarcely knew what he said. His lips formed the words out of long habit, and he didn't even hear his own voice over the drums, the rattles, the chants, and the relentless, rising power.

The King of Seresu pushed back his sleeve to bare the veins of the inner part of his wrist. The blue traceries against the pale skin were as strangely mesmerizing as the hypnotic, driving music that now owned his soul. He held out his other hand, and the Priestess placed the Sacral Knife in it. The knife was of black volcanic glass, sharper than any steel weapon and glinting darkly in his hand.

Sacral Knife, and Sacral King... Such was his destiny. He returned to himself for a moment as he gazed at the knife. Such a knife, he knew, should one day cut his own throat while he was held in an enchanted sleep.

Then his vision blurred, and he saw nothing but white and blue and black. Everything in his sight was white and blue and black.

The chants rose, the drums pounded. His heart pounded in time with them. He heard ravens calling overhead.

His mind became a blank mirror, reflecting a black moon and eternal ice.

His hand moved; sharp pain flared in his wrist. He looked down. The Sacral Knife bit deep, deep into his naked wrist. Bright, hot blood welled, spilled over his arm to drain onto the earth in a crimson stream.

A river of blood.

Frenzied power rose and swelled, whirling about him, spiraling ever higher, rising, rising. His blood steamed when it hit the frozen ground. Instead of freezing in place, the blood was slowly absorbed, down into the ground, becoming one with the very earth of Seresu. Seresu drank all of it, all of his blood, all of his life, everything he was, leaving him alone and bereft in a tangled snare of magic and fate.

And as Seresu drank his blood, as the power reached its peak and burst and crashed back to the earth, burning and burning, a deafening cry went up all about him. The people cheered, a host of throats shouting out approval and thanks and glad tidings. The King of Seresu lifted his head, and saw the sea of entranced faces, the multitude of glazed eyes, and his heart pounded and his blood continued to fall, a river of blood that fed the land.

He heard another voice, a young, frightened voice, and it almost called him from his trance. Almost...

The Priestess's aged visage blocked his sight. She looked shaken. "That's enough," she said softly, removing the Sacral Knife from his nerveless grasp.

She took his face in both hands and kissed his brow. "The frozen land keeps and binds us all. Destiny has long awaited its release, and we now bear witness to its awakening. My blessings upon you, Ashura of Vanir, Sacral King of Holy Seresu, Chosen Instrument of the Gods." Her voice was low, so low, the words not meant to be heard by even the closest celebrants, but for his ears alone.

She gently cradled his injured wrist in her trembling hands. More blood welled up, and she gathered it on her fingers. Then she smeared his own blood upon his cheekbones and forehead.

He stared at her dully. There was something disturbing about that phrase, about Sacral Kings and Holy Seresu and the word Chosen, something that he had known just a short while ago, but his thoughts were sluggish and full of fog. He felt two tears fall from his eyes and slip down his cheeks, and wondered distantly what had caused them.

Then the Priestess smiled at him, and her expression held both sorrow and transcendent joy. Her hands still shook, but her eyes were lit by reverence and religious fervor. She gently dabbed the moisture from his face with the fine cloth of her own cloak. She healed the wound in his wrist, and all cares flew from his mind, and he couldn't even remember his own name.


	32. Chapter 32

Ashura struggled against the fog in his head as he returned to his place with his family. He barely noticed the hands that reached out to touch him as he passed by the countless celebrants. He barely noticed as someone helped him with his boots and his gloves, as his cloak was settled over his shoulders and affixed into place.

He saw the religious fervor in Suhail's eyes, so much like his sister Ansu's. He saw the strange combination of bewilderment, entrancement, and rapture in Kendappa's. His other relatives, his wizards, his councilors—all looked as bespelled as the crowd. He couldn't bring himself to care about any of them. The fog whirled and spun his thoughts away before they could take root, and he let it happen. It was easier to be mindless, and accepting.

He only came back to himself at the sound of a thin, young voice and the sight of frightened blue eyes.

"You said it would be just a nick," Fai cried, his words shrill and upset. "You said it would only be a few drops of blood. You said—"

"Fai," Ashura interrupted the child, having finally found his own voice again. He forced a smile for Fai's sake, trying to make it an apology. Forced his mind to function, forced himself to offer reassurance, but it was so hard. "Fai, I'm sorry. I was careless, and the knife slipped. I didn't even realize I'd cut myself at first."

That last statement was the truth, at least. Ashura hadn't noticed he'd sliced open his wrist until he'd felt the pain. He displayed his formerly wounded wrist to Fai. "You see," he said. The more he spoke with Fai, the easier it was for him to think again. "Ansu healed it. There's nothing to be worried about." His wrist was unscarred, but with distaste he noticed the drying blood on his skin and sleeve. Best not to let Fai get too good a look at that. He pulled his arm away.

"But...but all the magic..." Fai began.

"There is too much this time. It is not normal. Nothing was normal this year. I assure you, Fai, usually this ritual is not so...overpowering."

"There's blood on your face..."

"Ansu smeared it there. You must have seen. It is always done," Ashura tried to calm him. "Now hush, child. This is almost over. I promise, I'll answer your questions on the way back."

Fai's expression held a peculiar mixture of rebelliousness and fear, but he subsided. However, he also gripped Ashura's hand in both of his, tightly, and wouldn't let go.

Ashura's head cleared completely as the Völur grounded the power and the excessive magic flowed back into the earth, into Seresu, where it belonged. The closing rites were most effective at their purpose.

He remembered most of the basic framework of what had occurred physically, although the events felt somewhat distant to him, almost as though he had been an observer rather than the focus of the rite. That was probably for the best. Less pleasing to him was that all the words that had been spoken during the rite eluded him. He reached for them, but there was nothing to grasp hold of but formless mist. He thought the words were important, that this time something had been said that he should remember, but those memories had fled along with his trance.

At least that was over. All the celebrants appeared to be recovering. Most didn't even seem to recognize that they had ever been enchanted. But everyone had been ensorcelled, even the Völur. And what a shock that must have been to them, he thought with dark amusement, to be caught in the web of their own spells.

Or had it been their spells? They sang the same songs every year, wove the same spells, and nothing like this had happened before. Ashura had felt magic rising out of the land, and out of everything that the land supported: humans, animals, plants, even rocks and snow and dirt. The power had spiraled up to its apex and funneled around him like a whirlwind when he had cut himself and fed his blood to Seresu.

That cut had been a real injury, made compulsively, not the usual scratch he gave himself at this rite. The blood had been a thin stream, rather than a few drops. And Seresu... Seresu had absorbed the blood, when every year before the blood had simply frozen to the icy surface of the earth.

Was it his curse, the Divine Spear of Madness? The ancients had called it both a curse and a blessing to Seresu, and had made it a central feature of the old religion. Only Ashura thought of it purely as a curse, but there was no longer any denying that it tied him to the land. It seemed those ties were more intimate and profound, and real, than he had comprehended.

Ashura had always been taught that Seresu hadn't been ruled by priest-kings for over two thousand years. All his life, he'd believed it.

All his life, he'd been wrong.

He at last understood that his connection to the land had triggered Seresu's reaction, and everyone dependent on, or linked to, Seresu had been caught in its web. Everyone except Fai.

Fai, who had been born in another land, in another world. Whose power was so great and so different that he couldn't be caught. Who, when the time came, would fail to sacrifice the Sacral King of Holy Seresu, and thus by the doom of his own curse become the cause for the destruction of the entire world.

I brought him here, Ashura's confused mind chanted, over and over. To this rite, and to Seresu. Fai...

He wanted to cry. He wanted to clutch Fai and Kendappa tightly to himself and sob out all his grief and fear and pain. Instead, he contented himself with the feel of Fai's small, warm hands gripping his, with Kendappa's strong, unbending presence beside him, with the rest of his family around him. He stood through the closing ceremony and watched calmly and dispassionately while Ansu Bhagat and her two attendants turned, walked past the rock altar and out of the holy sanctuary to disappear into the murky depths of the Silvafar Forest. He watched as the other Völur filed out behind their leaders. Waited as the sound of drums and rattles faded and finally ceased.

He knew they would not return, not until next year. And the year after that, and the year after that, forever and ever until Seresu was no more...

When the Völur were gone from the holy site, completely gone, the crowd suddenly came to life. Ashura listened with half an ear as the people talked excitedly among themselves. They were all still caught up in the rapture left in the magic's wake, and believed the ritual had been better than any they'd ever attended before. They weren't sure exactly what made it better, but all still felt its power and reveled in its exhilarating aftereffects. Nobles and commoners alike crowded around the royal family, barely held back by the guards, offering obeisance and congratulations and thanks for the king's annual blessing.

It was interesting, Ashura thought, inclining his head slightly to acknowledge the greetings, how memory seemed tied to magic today. The people only thought the rite more potent than usual, and didn't recall how they themselves had been tangled up in it with him.

Fai's hands tightened against his, and Ashura decided that it was past time to depart. He spoke quietly to a retainer, who nodded and vanished into the mob. A few minutes later, a fresh troop of guards arrived to escort the royal family through the crowds and to their mounts.

Soon they were on their way back to the castle. The long train of followers wasn't nearly as organized for the departure as they had been for their arrival to the King's Sacrifice, nor as solemn. Festive chatter and laughter lightened the journey back to Luval Town, a precursor to the multitude of parties and celebrations that would begin once the townsfolk returned home, and that would last all night long and even into the next day.

Fai again rode with Ashura, and this time Kendappa kept her own mount even with his so she could speak with him.

She asked, "Ashura, what happened? That wasn't...wasn't what usually happens..." Kendappa's eyes were bright, and she was uncharacteristically inarticulate.

"Too many Völur is what happened," Ashura replied, aware that Fai was listening closely. Ashura thought his statement was probably a lie, but he couldn't be certain. The sheer numbers of the priestesses present most likely had affected the rite to some degree, even if his own curse had set the course of events.

"Too many Völur?"

"They raised too much power. We were all caught in it. Everyone, even them. We all overreacted in response to it."

Kendappa made a thoughtful humming noise. "It did feel...overwhelming, this year. And amazing. I don't think any non-magicians really understood that the magic was so abnormally powerful, though."

"No, they all seem to believe that the rite was simply more effective than usual," Ashura said dryly. "They experienced an uncommon euphoria. I imagine the celebrations will be quite...intense...this evening."

Kendappa laughed. "Well, it is a fertility rite, after all," she pointed out merrily. Even she seemed infected by the general ebullience.

Fai craned his neck around and looked up into Ashura's face. "There was a lot of magic," he said. "I could see it all. It was really big. It whirled around you and tied everyone together." Then he looked away. "Everyone but me."

Ashura held the reins in one hand and gave the boy a quick hug with the other. "That's just as well, Fai. I'm glad you weren't caught up in it like that." Almost everyone taken by that net of magic, he knew, was bound to his own fate, just as he was bound to the land, and one day they would die by his hand. Even those not present; even those yet unborn. This ritual had touched all of Seresu when the land had drunk his blood. Only those who died before the King's Madness, or who escaped beyond Seresu's borders, would be spared. It pleased him that Fai was untouched by mystical ties to the land, unlike its native population. Pleased? He scoffed at his own understatement; he was ecstatic that Fai was free.

"Was it because I don't really belong here?" Fai asked, sounding a little sad.

"No." Ashura denied it instinctively, even while he wondered if it were true. He had thought something similar a little earlier. "No, I think it was simply because your own power is so great that even the Völur's spells can't touch you if you don't wish it." It wasn't all a lie. Ashura really did believe that had something to do with it. Besides, who would care that Fai hadn't become possessed by the Völur's songs of sacrifice or been tied to the land? In truth, those things were a blessing.

"There's blood on your face," Fai said next, very quietly.

The blood seemed to bother Fai a great deal. This was the second time he had mentioned it. Ashura said, "I will wash it off when we are home. It is nothing. The presiding Völva always marks my face with my blood. Usually, though, there is less for her to use and she only applies a few dots." Ashura forced another smile. "As I told you before, I mismanaged the knife. I was as surprised by the force of magic this year as anyone, and as a result, I became careless. It looked worse than it was, Fai. I didn't lose much blood at all, not enough to notice." Not quite true, but close enough; he was only a little lightheaded now that the magic had been grounded and the rite concluded. A good meal and a decent night's sleep should address the lingering aftereffects. "Fai, I told you before that the rite this year was not normal. Usually, everything is much..." He struggled to think of a benign comparison, and settled for understatement. "...smaller. Less intense. Normally the ritual is not unlike watching a play. There is always magic, but nowhere near as much."

Fai was silent for a moment, digesting that. Then he said, "Everybody cheered when you bled."

Ashura would definitely have to be careful about blood in the future. "Fai, I always must shed a little blood, but as I said before, it is normally only a few drops. And the people always cheer at the sacrifice. It is customary. They are happy that the land is fed and there is a promise for renewal and a good year." Ashura didn't mention that it was not customary for the people's eyes to be glazed with entrancement, to be so caught up in the rite that they were near mindless. It didn't matter. It was over.

Kendappa said, "It's a stupid peasant ritual, but it does make them happy." She paused, listening to the cheerful sounds following the royal family and the nobles, and smiled indulgently. "They do seem very happy this year."

She seemed rather happy, herself. Ashura stated resolutely, "They had best enjoy it while they can. I am not going to mismanage the Sacral Knife ever again."

"But can you keep so many Völur from attending again and lighting up the mountains with too much magic?"

"I will speak of it to Suhail. He can pass the word to Ansu, and she can spread it to the sisterhood." Ashura doubted the Völur needed the warning. Also, on an instinctive level he didn't believe it would happen again, at least not for many years, not until his own time drew near. He had wondered before if this year was special, if the traumas and unwelcome revelations that had marked the months of deep winter would haunt other aspects of life in Seresu. He supposed he had his answer. Fai's arrival was the final piece required by the convoluted puzzle that set destiny in motion. Even if things seemed to go back to normal, nothing could ever be the same again.

Ashura added, "I think they were also surprised by the amount of power raised. Likely, they will restrain themselves of their own accord."

Kendappa was silent for a moment. Then she moved her mount close to his and leaned in toward him. She reached out to brush her hand against his arm. "I'm glad it was just an accident," she said, so low-voiced he could barely hear her. "Your wrist, I mean. The ritual felt right, but I did wonder..."

Ashura blinked at her, confused. His expression darkened as he understood what she was asking. As though he would try something like that in such a public forum! He supposed it was only natural that she was concerned, despite her elation at the rite's effects. His suicide attempts had been only three months ago, and although no one spoke plainly of them, he knew they had not been forgotten. "You needn't fear, Kendappa," he replied, just as softly. "All is well now."

He could not kill himself. He wouldn't try, ever again. He didn't dare. Even if his own curse didn't stop him, to take his own life would cause Fai's second curse to devour the whole world.

Kendappa, knowing nothing of that, merely nodded, gave him a small smile, and dropped her hand again.

Ashura sighed. He hoped this concern wouldn't plague his people for much longer. He hoped Kendappa would reassure anyone else who had viewed the rite with that particular fear haunting them. He hoped Vainamoinen, Suhail, and the rest of his court hadn't even thought of it.

He knew he was wishing for the impossible. All he could do was behave normally, and hope it lulled whatever worries had been revived by the ritual bloodletting. He really didn't want to endure their unbearably gentle supervision again.

He didn't deserve their kindness or concern. He didn't deserve their protection. He deserved nothing more than their contempt and scorn. He deserved to die. He should have died three months ago.

Fai looked up at him. "I'm not the only one who didn't like seeing you bleed."

Ashura smiled at him. "No, you're not."

They passed through Luval Town and lost most of their entourage. The folk who had remained behind in the town had prepared for the day's revels. Although it was yet early in the day, large bonfires had already been lit and roared with fierce flames, providing heat and cheer. Whole carcasses of reindeer, sheep, and pigs roasted over the fires. Bakeshops, alehouses, and other eateries were the only businesses open, and their wares were free to all this day. It was traditional, Ashura explained to a wide-eyed and enthusiastic Fai, that the royal coffers cover all expenses for the town's celebrations after the King's Sacrifice.

"Will there be a feast at the castle, too?" Fai asked hopefully.

"A very great one," Ashura told him, and was amused by Fai's obvious delight. It seemed the promise of food and fun had diverted the child from thoughts of the upsetting sacrifice. The young were so very resilient. "It will be the largest feast of the whole festival. The best entertainers will also perform. There will be musicians and dancers, and jugglers, and fire eaters, and a play."

"A play?"

"A comedy." At the time the actors had been engaged, Ashura hadn't realized how desperately he would need some lighthearted entertainment.

Fai's eyes and mouth were round with wonder. Ashura hugged him again and kicked his mount's flank to quicken the pace for home.


	33. Chapter 33

Later that night, much later, long after the children had been sent to bed, and even after much of the court had retired, Ashura got drunk for the first time during the festival. Completely, totally drunk. Blind, stupid, stinking drunk, as the commonfolk said. So damn drunk he could barely hold up his wine cup for a refill. But hold it up he did, when another servant passed by with a pitcher.

He figured the universe owed him a little forgetfulness.

The universe also owed him a little comfort in recompense for his misery. To that end, he had hunted two-legged game before becoming too drunk to think straight, and now had an armful of very willing feminine companionship leaning affectionately against him.

Not that he'd had to work very hard to secure the lady's company. Lady Eliina was an attractive young widow, and had been casting lures in his direction for the past few days at court. There were certainly advantages to being the king. Tonight he didn't particularly care about what the lady might hope to gain from sharing his bed. As a rule, he was generous to his mistresses, and so didn't give it any thought.

Less pleasing, Lord Taishakuten sat on his other side, expounding doggedly and at great length about how too much peace made armies weak. The Griffin of the South had also consumed too much wine, and gestured dramatically with his cup, sloshing the contents. Eliina giggled and, annoyingly, hung on his every word.

Piqued, Ashura thought that maybe it was time for all of them to go to bed, and said so.

Eliina tittered, Taishakuten choked and lifted an amused eyebrow, and Ashura belatedly realized how that utterance had sounded. Even worse, both his drinking companions looked alarmingly intrigued by the notion. Ashura was no prude, but there were limits, and that idea far exceeded his.

No matter how drunk he was.

Before Ashura could correct their misapprehensions, Taishakuten laughed. "Majesty, how do you have so much energy? After the power and blood expended at today's sacrifice, I expected you to take to your bed hours ago. My wizard told me the magic focused on you was beyond ordinary endurance."

Ashura didn't want to think about that. That was why he'd gotten drunk. "You have taken the wrong idea..." He wasn't sure if he was denying his inadvertent proposition or the effects of the King's Sacrifice. Both, he supposed.

"For prosperity and good health!" Taishakuten threw a muscular arm around Ashura's neck and held out his goblet, roaring, "The King and the Land are One!"

Eliina echoed him with her own toast, "The King and the Land are One!"

The remaining revelers still in the Hall, and the servants who catered to them, also took up the call, cheering raucously.

Ashura groaned and wished he'd stayed sober, or, better yet, done as Taishakuten had suggested and gone to bed early.

Say, at the same time the children had...

Everyone had felt the power and euphoria of the sacrifice, even non-magicians. Everyone associated it with the excess of blood that Ashura had spilled, even high-ranking wizards who should know better.

Even his own family.

Ashura had been concerned that his niece and nephews would be as upset as Fai, but, unlike Fai, they had been caught up in the web of magic and its accompanying euphoria. Like everyone else, they only believed the ritual had been better than usual. They hadn't liked all the blood, but they had believed his story about what had happened.

Ashura's explanation—that his surprise at the magnitude of the magic had caused the knife to slip—had been universally accepted by all, even the court wizards. That supposed mishap was viewed as an immensely good omen. The more blood, the more power, the more potent the rite, and the better the coming year. That was how the reasoning went.

Fools.

Ashura felt his mood sour further, helped along by the excess of wine he'd consumed. He extricated his neck from Taishakuten's arm. The warlord just grinned at him, lifted his cup in another toast, and drained the contents. A different cup clattered onto the floor, a heavy, dead weight settled against Ashura's other side, and a delicate snore drifted up. He looked down at the very inebriated, very unconscious Lady Eliina, who was now drooling on him.

So much for his evening's plans.

He beckoned over a servant. "Fetch Lady Eliina's attendants," he told the man through numbing lips. "They need to come put their mistress to bed."

He needed to put himself to bed, too, he thought as Eliina's retainers arrived to carry their lady off to her bedchamber. He forced himself to rise. Colors smeared and the world spun slowly about him. Oh, yes, this was why he didn't get drunk very often.

Well, the drunkenness was easily remedied. Ashura always kept a simple detoxification spell prepared. That precaution had been ingrained into him since his youth, and the spell was as effective against alcohol poisoning as any other sort. He took a step and staggered, all thoughts flying from his head as he focused on merely staying upright.

A strong hand grasped his upper arm and kept him from falling onto his face. Lord Taishakuten's voice said, close to Ashura's ear, "Perhaps Your Majesty also needs some assistance returning to your quarters. I shall be honored to escort you."

"That won't be necessary, my lord," Ashura said, feeling his muzziness increase as the wine went straight to his head. "My servants can assist me. You should see to your own personal needs."

That didn't come out right, either. Taishakuten's ice blue eyes glinted with repressed laughter. Ashura decided that he should not have had so much to drink. Alcohol and blood loss were a rather potent and disabling combination.

"King Ashura?" It was a young boy who spoke next.

Ashura felt a jolt of recognition, and his eyes widened in alarm. He looked down, and saw... "Fai...?"

Ashura blinked several times, trying to clear his vision. No matter how much he squinted, Fai was still there, gazing up at him with incomprehension. The boy was dressed in nightclothes and a robe, totally inappropriate garb in which to be wandering the castle at any hour. Ashura glanced at Fai's feet, and was relieved that the child had had the sense to wear slippers. At least he wasn't barefoot.

Taishakuten released Ashura's arm and dropped his hand. Ashura listed to one side, but managed to prevent himself from toppling over through sheer force of will.

Somewhat at a loss, Ashura asked, "Fai, what are you doing here? It's well after midnight..."

A maidservant and a guardsman came running to flank the child. They both dropped to their knees and bowed their heads. Castle servants were accustomed to Ashura's presence, and usually simply bowed or curtseyed. They didn't kneel except in the throne room, or unless they feared angering him or were conscious of some fault. In this case, the fault was obvious.

"Majesty, forgive us," the guard said. "I don't know how he got past us..."

The maidservant added, "He was quite insistent on seeing you, Sire. I think he had a bad dream. Please..."

Ashura blinked owlishly, barely hearing the entreaties. His attention was all on Fai, who was staring at him with those big, blue eyes. This was a disconcerting development. No, it was worse. It was a nightmare.

It wasn't as though Fai had never seen inebriated noblemen before, given that some of the nobles occasionally drank too much at dinner. And everyone tended to be freer with the wine during high festivals. But Fai had never seen Ashura drunk, and Ashura was discovering that the situation more than displeased him: it made him feel not merely uncomfortable, but horrendously guilty.

Taishakuten bowed his head and said quietly, "I will leave you to this domestic matter, Majesty." Ashura absentmindedly nodded permission for him to depart, which he did with alacrity.

"Fai," Ashura asked, "why did you come here?"

"Because you weren't in your rooms," Fai said with a reproachful air.

When had the child learned to sound like a disappointed schoolteacher? Ashura rubbed his face and tried to order his fuzzy, unruly thoughts. Fai had probably learned it from his tutors. Naturally. "No, I mean, how did you know I was in the Hall?"

"Oh. I asked the servants. They said you were probably still here."

Still kneeling, the maidservant said, "Majesty, I'm so very sorry. I had no idea he'd—"

Ashura held up a hand to stop her. "A moment," he said, and collapsed back down to his seat as another wave of dizziness swept over him. He finally remembered his detoxification spell. He certainly needed it now.

His thoughts were muddled and his focus severely lacking. It took him several tries to manifest the spell, but finally the glowing blue glyph hovered above his hand. He drew it in towards his abdomen, and the spell sank into his body. He shivered at the icy sensation. Then a pleasant warmth spread, his dizziness lessened, and his mind started to clear.

It would take a little while to work, and as a general purpose detoxification spell it wouldn't clean away all the symptoms, although most should dissipate soon. However, he would be spared the morning hangover, and he should be able to walk to his quarters under his own power.

Feeling better, he again got to his feet and took an experimental step forward. He was pleased that he didn't sway or totter this time.

"What spell was that?" Fai asked curiously.

Ashura answered without thinking. "A simple detoxification spell. It works by nullifying the effects of various poisons."

"Poisons?" Now Fai looked worried.

"Yes. In this case, alcohol." Belatedly, Ashura realized that he had upset Fai, and tried to make amends. "It is nothing, I just had a little too much to drink." That came out poorly, too. It seemed that tonight he was doomed to speak clumsily. He really should have gone into hiding immediately after the King's Sacrifice and just stayed there until his brain and mouth functioned properly again. At a loss, he added, "Forgive me, Fai. You shouldn't have seen me like this." He looked to the kneeling maid and guard. "You may rise and escort Lord Fai and myself to our quarters."

They both got up, relief plain on their faces. The situation really wasn't their fault. Ashura had instructed the castle servants to obey Fai in many matters, although he expected them to use a little common sense. Usually, his trust in their sense was justified. This time, he supposed they had only thought to reassure the child by telling him Ashura's whereabouts, and hadn't considered how quick and agile Fai could be, or even that the boy might bolt on them.

Despite the detoxification spell's effects, it was a painfully long walk to the royal wing. Fai's warm hand in his was comforting, but Ashura was rather glad he had two servants along to catch him if perchance he should fall over. It wasn't just wine and the spell; he knew he shouldn't have drunk so much after shedding blood and being the focus of so much magic. Unthinkingly, he turned into his own quarters, wanting nothing more than to collapse onto his own bed.

He really should have remembered to let go of Fai's hand and send him with the servants to his own rooms.

Ashura intended to rectify that mistake, but Fai was staring at him again. He fell into his chair by the hearth. The servants had kept the fire burning in his absence to keep the room warm. That was fortunate, since he didn't think he could rekindle the fire safely. It might explode in his face if he tried. He didn't trust his control over his own magic right now, not with the alcohol still in his blood and the detoxification spell working inside his body. He was also glad he had remembered to leave a few magelights burning to keep the room decently lit.

"So," he said, dismissing all other issues, "you had another bad dream?"

Fai said softly, "It was full of blood. I can't remember much else about it."

"I'm sorry, Fai." Ashura supposed it shouldn't be unexpected that Fai had trouble sleeping, considering the events at the King's Sacrifice. There had been far too much blood, as well as too much magic, and the ceremony hadn't gone as he had told Fai it would. Fai already had a great many nightmares. Ashura was sorry to have added another to his store.

Ashura considered his foster son. Fai looked much too alert, and was unlikely to simply go to sleep if sent back to bed. "Shall we read a story? It might take your mind off the bad dream," he suggested instead. That might calm the child and even make him drowsy. Assuming Ashura himself didn't fall asleep first...

Fai nodded and said, "Okay."

"Why don't you go pick something out?" Since acquiring Fai, Ashura had stocked his private library with a selection of children's books. Fai had a number of favorites.

The child practically bounced into the library. The young had such limitless energy, Ashura thought with some envy. At present, he had none. A few moments later, he heard a dreadful series of thuds, as though an entire bookcase's worth of books had all fallen at once.

He rose to his feet. "Fai, what happened? Are you all right?" He started toward the library, when Fai hesitantly appeared in the open doorway, clutching a large book to his chest.

"Um, you don't want to go in there," the child said sheepishly.

Ashura peered through the doorway. His ears had not misled him; an entire bookcase's worth of books lay in a jumbled heap on the floor. Fortunately, the empty bookcase was still standing.

Fai said, "I was trying to get some books with levitation, but, well..."

"I see," Ashura said slowly. He closed the door, shutting out the sight. In his current state, he doubted he could levitate the books back into place without making the mess worse or blowing up each and every book. The servants could clean up the books in the morning. It would serve them right for letting Fai run loose so late at night.

Fai plopped down in Ashura's chair and paged through his book. A few folded papers fluttered free. He picked them up and examined them with rapt interest.

Ashura caught sight of the book's cover and blanched.

"This spell is really complicated," Fai said, studying one paper closely. "It looks like some kind of spell for traveling, but it's kind of odd, like it's for going somewhere really strange. Am I right?" he asked eagerly, looking up. "Is it for traveling? Did I get it right?"

Ashura felt his heart sink down to his toes. It was, in fact, the world-walking spell that Ashura had created to visit the Witch of Dimensions. The other papers were his notes. Just as the book was the collection of wonder tales about that terrifying, godlike being.

He should have destroyed that spell, the notes, and the book with them.

Fai was a prodigy at magic. His training was only in its beginning stages, but Ashura knew the child had browsed through some of the books of magic in the castle library. Fai's inchoate skill at reading Seresu's written language made true comprehension of the complex tomes impossible, but he must have been able to recognize the spell-runes in certain transport spells. Fai knew the meanings and magical uses for the full set of spell-runes, so he could decipher some of the basic workings from their use in such spells. And the child already knew that other worlds existed, and that they could be traversed. He'd come from another world, after all.

Ashura felt ill. He really didn't need this, not after everything else that had happened, and not with a head muddled by blood loss, alcohol, and a detoxification spell. He made himself walk over and look at the papers. "You are correct," he said, very softly. "It is a spell for traveling between worlds."

"I knew it!" Fai crowed. "Is it like the one you used to bring me here? Oh, I wonder if it works. It's in a book of fairy tales. They're not real, are they? Did someone really think this spell would work?"

With a sudden shock that almost made him faint, Ashura recalled Fai's gift for memorization. As far as Ashura could tell, spells Fai learned stayed with him forever. Sometimes the child only had to look at spells once to commit them to memory, and he never needed to refresh them in his mind. He couldn't perform them yet, but that was cold comfort to Ashura.

"I suppose it's too much to hope that you haven't already memorized it," Ashura whispered, but Fai wasn't listening.

The child's eyes had become very large and round. "The handwriting..." he breathed. "It's yours, isn't it? It looks like yours. Did you...? Did you try to visit...?"

"We all have our odd fancies at times, Fai, even me." Ashura faked a smile and sat next to Fai in the overlarge chair. He removed the book, spell, and notes from Fai's hands, and smoothed the paper down with his fingers. "It was an interesting exercise."

"Oh, it was just for practice?" Fai said, misinterpreting the ambiguous statement as Ashura had hoped. Fai was required to do a lot of things "just for practice," in magic and his other studies, so it was a natural assumption. "Like a lesson?" Fai looked a little disappointed.

"It was quite a lesson," Ashura answered honestly, and with great resignation. "One I do not plan to repeat if I can help it."

"That doesn't make it sound like it was very fun."

"Fun wasn't the point."

Ashura saw with relief that Fai was rapidly losing interest in the spell. The idea that it was just a piece of practice work—and unpleasant practice work, at that—took the sheen off it and made it less enticing. Ashura continued the distraction, saying, "Now, shall we read some of these stories, do you think?" He opened the book and flipped through the pages. He stopped at a particularly fanciful entry that, despite its utter silliness, was probably true. "You should enjoy this one," he said, and started to read aloud.

A calculated risk, reading fairy tales about the Witch of Dimensions to Fai, but one circumstances now dictated that Ashura must take. The premise that she was fictional should suffice to misdirect Fai while he was still so young. However, when he got older and more experienced, and could judge more clearly for himself about magical matters, he would read the subtleties and nuances of intent in the spell he had learned and understand the truth of its purpose. Ashura knew he would have to explain some day.

Just not now.

He had enough experience with prophetic dreams to know destiny when it slapped him in the face. It had done so twice this day. The future drove forward, relentlessly, implacably, inescapably.

Ashura hoped and prayed that Fai never had cause to visit the Witch of Dimensions, but something in his heart was crying.


	34. Chapter 34: Part IV: Another Path

**Part IV: Another Path**

Yūi didn't like Lord Taishakuten.

He had hoped that the warlord would go back to the Southlands when the Sunbirth Festival had ended, but instead Lord Taishakuten stayed on for two more weeks. Supposedly, this was so Lord Taishakuten, the king, and the king's advisors could discuss issues of defense against Arimaspea. And, indeed, that did seem to be the purpose of Lord Taishakuten's extended visit. No one acted as though it were unusual.

Yūi knew that most day to day business had been put on hold during Sunbirth, and that the king needed to deal with it in a timely manner. He also knew that the spring court was bigger than the winter court, and that due to the milder weather of spring there would be more comings and goings. Nobles stayed so they could conduct their own business with the king and the court, then would depart and be replaced by other nobles. Lady Eliina had also stayed, and the king seemed to like her company a lot. They had gotten really friendly by the end of the Sunbirth Festival.

Lady Eliina and the other nobles didn't make Yūi nervous the way Lord Taishakuten did.

It wasn't as though Lord Taishakuten was ever mean to him. The warlord barely noticed him most of the time, and when he did he was always unfailingly polite and treated Yūi with courtesy, even bowing to him. But Lord Taishakuten's gaze was sometimes speculative when he looked at Yūi. It was discomfiting. Sometimes Yūi saw Lord Taishakuten slyly observing the court in a cool, almost contemptuous manner. Yūi's past experiences in Valeria's court came back to him whenever he noticed such things, and he thought that Lord Taishakuten was scheming something but hiding the fact that he was doing so. And Yūi really didn't like the way Lord Taishakuten paid so much attention to the king. All the other courtiers paid a lot of attention to the king, too, but somehow this seemed different.

Yūi wished Mielu and Virender were still at court. At least he could have had someone his own age to talk to, but then he remembered that Mielu had a crush on Lord Taishakuten, and Virender a bad case of hero worship. They wouldn't understand.

He looked around the Great Hall at the spring court. Dinner was over, and the nobles and wizards were now socializing. The king, Lord Taishakuten, Lord Vainamoinen, and Lord Suhail were deeply engrossed in some discussion. From the looks on their faces and the occasional bursts of laughter, whatever they were talking about wasn't a serious matter. Yūi cast his gaze farther, and saw Lady Eliina over by the dais where the king usually sat. She was chatting with a few other noblewomen and showing off a sparkling bracelet.

He rather liked Lady Eliina. She was nice to him, and had a cheerful disposition. She smiled a lot and always looked pretty and said amusing things. Lady Kendappa tolerated her, although Yūi had once overheard her remark to Lord Vainamoinen that Lady Eliina lacked discretion and wouldn't last long. Yūi wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but assumed Lady Eliina would be returning to her home soon.

If only Lord Taishakuten would also go home soon.

Yūi understood that the Southlands were really important to Seresu. His tutors had taught him all about how that part of the country was the largest territory that had a decent growing season and good soil conditions. It also had a very productive gold mine. It was unfortunate that it was on the border with an unfriendly country. Yūi didn't understand why the Arimaspi were so intent on taking over the Southlands. From what his tutors said, Arimaspea actually had richer farmland and better weather in its own southern areas, and fewer rocky mountains overall. Why should the Arimaspi want to take the only really good farmland from Seresu? Maybe it was just the gold they wanted. The Borean gold mine was located in the hills of the Southlands, and the Arimaspi raiders did seem to try to reach it often.

Maybe they wanted all the gold in Seresu. Yūi frowned at that thought. If so, that meant they wouldn't stop at taking the Southlands and the Borean gold mine. They'd try to take over the whole country. Seresu's mountain ranges had a lot of gold, silver, copper, iron, and even gems.

So Yūi understood why the king worried so much about the defense of the southern border. He understood that Lord Taishakuten was a really important warlord and noble, one of the most important in Seresu, and also one of the strongest. Lord Taishakuten had a big army and controlled a number of fortifications all through the Southlands and along its border. No wonder King Ashura wanted to plan the country's defense with him.

Yūi still wanted Lord Taishakuten to go home. That was where he belonged, anyway, so he could protect his territory.

Yūi was so focused that he jumped when Lady Kendappa spoke to him. "Such a fierce frown on such a charming young face," she said lightly. "What troubles you, Fai?"

Yūi didn't think he should answer that question in public. Besides, he knew Lady Kendappa admired Lord Taishakuten. She appreciated strength, determination, fearlessness, intelligence, and ambition, and even Yūi had to admit that Lord Taishakuten possessed all of those virtues in abundance. Yūi had heard that the warlord was also quite ruthless, but he knew Lady Kendappa had that quality as well. He didn't object to it in her, any more than he objected to the hard core of ruthlessness he sensed in the king. They applied it with care and thoughtfulness. Yūi hoped that Lord Taishakuten also took care when he exercised it.

Lady Kendappa turned her head to follow his gaze. "Oh," she said. "Yes, I believe I understand. Why don't we go have a talk?" She beckoned him to follow her out of the Hall.

They went into a side chamber, and Lady Kendappa shut the door for some privacy. "Now, why don't you tell me why you don't like Lord Taishakuten?" she asked bluntly.

"I-I never said..." Yūi stammered.

"You didn't need to, you were glaring so. You shouldn't do that in open court, Fai."

Yūi knew that. He looked down. "I just wish he would go away. He's supposed to be protecting the Southlands, not staying here," he muttered sullenly.

"He has many war leaders under his command who are more than capable of watching over things in his absence," she pointed out calmly. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through him. "You object to his association with the king, don't you?"

"Kind of." Yūi kicked at the floor.

"Why is that?" Her gaze was curiously intent, as though she were measuring and testing him.

Yūi twisted his hands together and admitted, "I'm not sure. He makes me nervous. I just don't like the way he sometimes looks at us... Or the way he looks at King Ashura."

Lady Kendappa blinked.

"It's like he's..." Yūi faltered a bit. "Like he's hungry. I know it doesn't make sense, but..." He stopped, unable to articulate his feelings. "He makes me nervous when he looks at me, and I wish he wouldn't pay so much attention to the king."

Lady Kendappa went silent for a moment. She sighed and rested a hand on Yūi's shoulder. "Ah, Fai, Ashura's right about you. You are very clever and discerning."

"Do you think King Ashura has even noticed? He doesn't seem to." Yūi was quite worried about that. The king never gave any indication that he was troubled at all by Lord Taishakuten's attention, or that he had even recognized it.

"Oh, he's not that oblivious," said Lady Kendappa. She thought for a moment, tapping her finger on her chin. Her lips twisted in aggravation. "I take that back," she grumbled. "Of course he is."

"Oh," Yūi said. Lady Kendappa's half-considered words had not been encouraging. "Can't you talk to him?"

She looked sulky. "He'll either say I'm imagining things or tell me not to stir up trouble." She sounded annoyed. "Who knows? He might be right. It's hard to tell with Taishakuten. His behavior isn't consistent, and he's at least as secretive and manipulative as anyone else in the court."

"Oh." Yūi wrung his hands together in distress.

Her eyes softened. "Fai, don't worry so. This isn't dangerous in any real sense. Lord Taishakuten doesn't want to hurt Ashura or any of the rest of us. His primary goal is to increase his power base, and everyone who desires power tries to curry favor with the king and his advisors. And as for any aspirations beyond that...well, they won't go anywhere. There is nothing for you to fear from him, Fai."

"What does he want besides power—?"

"You're much too young to understand yet," she cut him off.

Yūi shrugged. There were still a lot of things the adults did that he didn't understand, but that didn't stop him from asking questions. "Why does the king put up with him trying to get more power?"

"For the same reason he tolerates it in the other nobles, because Taishakuten is useful politically and militarily," she answered automatically. She laughed. "And he pays his taxes on time. Kings always regard that as a great virtue." At his confused look, she gentled her tone. "You really needn't worry about this, Fai. Ashura can take care of himself. Now that I think on it, I believe I may have wronged him. I must remember to be nicer to Lady Eliina," she added absently.

Yūi thought her last statements incomprehensible. "Do you like Lord Taishakuten?"

"Like him?"

"Mielu once told me that all the ladies are in love with him."

Lady Kendappa smiled broadly. "I suppose that's true. In fact, Fai, I do like him." Now she grinned, showing teeth. "Or perhaps I should instead say that I admire him. He's very strong, he's an excellent courtier when he wants to be, and his physical attributes are quite attractive. He's also a great hero and defender of the country."

"That's what Mielu and Virender said," Yūi said glumly, turning his face to the floor. "He rules an important territory, too. No wonder the king doesn't want to make him mad."

"Oh, Fai, it's not as though the Southlands would suddenly vanish if Taishakuten took a snit. He won't do anything to endanger his own power and position, even if Ashura does something to irritate him."

"Is there any way to make him leave?" Yūi asked plaintively, pressing forward with his real agenda.

"Taishakuten? He'll go home of Ashura asks him to do so." She sighed, but with a slight smile that indicated she wasn't too concerned. "Fai, dearling, he's very important. You really do need to learn to at least give the outward appearance of tolerating him, no matter what you think of him privately."

Yūi didn't believe Lady Kendappa was taking him seriously. In fact, he thought she was just humoring him, and his mood shifted from worry to pique. Adults were the same everywhere, and didn't think he understood things just because he was young. He knew he'd have to accept Lord Taishakuten, just like he had to accept all the other nobles. He just didn't like it.

"I know, but do I have to do it now?" he said, and couldn't help the whine that crept into his tone. That annoyed him, too, and it was all he could do to stop himself from stamping his feet.

She gave him a strange look, and he immediately put on his most wistful expression. Sometimes the cooks gave him extra treats when he did that.

She shook her head and uttered a little laugh. "Oh, dear," she said, looking amused.

Maybe he should have stamped his feet.

"You don't have to like him, Fai. Just mind your manners well enough that you don't embarrass Ashura," she told him. "No one expects you to be perfect. I think Taishakuten's only staying with the court right now to garner more connections and social credentials, anyway. He won't take it amiss if you simply avoid him. I doubt he'll even notice."

"Then it's not important if he stays or goes?" Yūi asked hopefully, picking up on her implication that there was no serious business that the king needed to conduct with Lord Taishakuten.

"Well, that's not our decision, but now that you have me thinking on it..." She stopped, scrutinized him thoughtfully, and sudden mischief lit her eyes. "Oh. Oh, my. I wonder if it would work... Yes, I'm sure it would..."

"Lady Kendappa?" he asked, bewildered. "What would work?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she looked over his head and appeared to be fighting a grin. "We'll all be seeing Taishakuten again in a couple of months, anyway. He can do his politicking then." She paused thoughtfully. "Ashura won't send him home if there's still important business to be resolved, so that's not a concern. And he's always diplomatic enough with the great lords to avoid offending them. It'll be good for him; he needs a small break whether he knows it or not. So then..."

They were going to see Lord Taishakuten again so soon? Yūi didn't like the sound of that. He had been hoping it would be longer. Say, not until next year's Sunbirth Festival. The rest of what she'd said seemed like rambling to him, but it did sound like she was going to ask the king to send Lord Taishakuten away. "Do you think he'll do it if you ask?"

"What? Me?"

Yūi frowned at her silly incomprehension of a simple question. "Aren't you going to ask the king to send Lord Taishakuten away? That's what it sounded like you were talking about."

She tilted her head. "Oh, no, I don't plan to ask Ashura to do anything. He'd want to know why, and then I'd have to tell him the truth. And then he'd just tell me in that aggravating way of his that you needed to learn to act polite to all the nobles whether you liked them or not. And he'd be right, too, the wretch." She rolled her eyes.

Since she had just told him the same thing, Yūi failed to comprehend why she was annoyed that the king would also say so. "Oh," he only said, disappointed that he wouldn't get an easy solution from her.

"No, he needs to come up with the idea all on his own. So he will." Lady Kendappa expression was devious, and the mischief in her eyes grew more pronounced. "Tell me, Fai," she said slowly, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards, "how good are you at pretending?"

"Pretending what?"

"How well can you pretend your emotions? Aside from that pleading look you gave me a little while ago, I mean. Can you make people think you're feeling sad, timid, or afraid, even if you're not?"

"Um, well..." Yūi didn't want to admit to anything like that. He was actually rather proud of his skill at pretending, but what good was it if people knew he could do it? Besides, he often felt sad and a little afraid, so what Lady Kendappa had asked wasn't really like pretending.

Lady Kendappa answered her own question. "That was foolish of me. Of course you can. You've been learning from an expert," she said with a quirk of an eyebrow. Yūi felt his eyes widen, and Lady Kendappa added, "Oh, don't look so surprised. I've had a lifetime of practice trying to read Ashura. He can still befool me, but I often know such things when I see them in others. It's a useful skill at court."

"Oh." Yūi rubbed his arm nervously. He didn't like the idea that someone could tell when he was lying. He didn't often think of his past or his future anymore, so most of the time he didn't have to lie or pretend to hide his real emotions. But those times when he did, he would have to be a lot more careful.

"Fai, here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to act nervous whenever you're with Ashura and Taishakuten comes near. Don't be too obvious about it. We don't want to create a scandal. Just be a little timid or shy, maybe shrink back a little behind Ashura." She chuckled, sounding quite pleased with herself. "And if the king asks you what's wrong, be evasive and only hint that you are uncomfortable around Taishakuten. You will need to be subtle, but I have seen you demonstrate subtlety before, so I believe you can do it. I know it's a lot to ask, but you seem capable."

Yūi nodded. He could do that easily. It was nothing compared to his other lies and secrets. He wasn't really afraid of Lord Taishakuten, not really, but when the warlord looked at him with those ice blue eyes he did sometimes want to hide. He just tried not to show it. Now, Lady Kendappa wanted him to show it. That would be easy.

He even understood why she wanted him to show it, when he put it together with her other odd statements. Yūi worried a little that maybe he shouldn't lie to or manipulate the king like this, but Lady Kendappa didn't seem to think it was a problem. Maybe she did it sometimes, too.

Besides, the king was always hiding his feelings and pretending about things to his courtiers. King Ashura even did it to him, Yūi thought with a touch of annoyance. Like when he was having bad dreams, or—or that wish he had once mentioned that he wanted Yūi to grant. The king had never explained that, either.

Yūi hadn't thought of that in a long time. The king had never mentioned that wish again; maybe he'd changed his mind about it. Even so, Yūi felt fresh irritation about the way the king kept things from him, probably for "his own good."

Well, this was for the king's own good, right? Lady Kendappa had said as much.

Besides, if the king did it, it must be okay. He remembered how Mielu had once told him that, and he thought she was right. It was a good rule to follow.

Lady Kendappa said, "Be sure you don't ever look happy when Taishakuten is around. I know you never smile or laugh; that's good. Trust me, now is not the time to learn." Under her breath, she muttered, "If Ashura thinks you actually like the Griffin, we'll never be rid of him."

"What do you mean, Lady Kendappa?" Yūi asked, bewildered again by her last remark. He'd just told her he didn't like Lord Taishakuten. Why would she think he would ruin the plan by acting like he did?

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Never mind, child," she told him indulgently. "You just do as I say, and I'm sure Lord Taishakuten will be gone in a fortnight."

To Yūi's delight, it took less than a week.


	35. Chapter 35

Ashura had not been as deceived as his cousin and foster son assumed. After a lifetime as the object of all varieties of political and court intrigues, he himself was quite skilled at the arts of misdirection and deception. Unless he was overly tired or distracted, he usually recognized when such tricks were played upon him by even the most sophisticated and dishonest of his courtiers. And Fai was hardly a practiced manipulator.

Well, not yet, anyway. Fai was well on his way, if his recent performance was any indication.

Ashura paused in his work, lifting his quill from the paper he had been making notes upon, and looked over at his little schemer, who was working on his latest magic lesson in Ashura's quarters. Fai frowned in concentration. He might never smile, but he could certainly scowl. Fai moved his fingers absently and levitated two quills simultaneously. For the moment at least, pleasant silence reigned. Ashura knew it wouldn't last long.

He was actually rather proud of the precocious boy's guile, cleverness, and developing court skills, and had been charmed by the childish act. Fai would need such talents in the future, so Ashura had done nothing to discourage him—or his dear, dear cousin. He was under no illusions as to who had been the instigator, having been the target of her wiles before. When caught and challenged, she always claimed her actions were for his own good. Because they usually were, he tended to let them pass. She had been counting on his forbearance this time, he was sure. Not to mention his affection for Fai.

He repressed a grin, dipped the quill in the rock crystal inkpot, and attempted to scratch out some spell-runes. Alas, he remained distracted by amusing memories of the fortunate and not terribly subtle plot Fai and Kendappa had engaged in. Since they had gone to so much trouble, of course he had had no choice but to accommodate them. Besides, Ashura knew that Fai really was a little disturbed by Taishakuten. It wasn't all an act on Fai's part, so Ashura had been obligated to improve the child's environment, and, conveniently, his own.

There was no harm done; in fact, it had been an excellent opportunity. Ashura had already been of the same mind as Fai and Kendappa. Taishakuten was ambitious, and Ashura had started to grow weary of the incessant maneuvering. He had begun looking for a politically inoffensive way to rid himself of Taishakuten's company, but had been frustrated in that effort. The southern border had remained abnormally quiet, despite the decent weather of the past few weeks, and so had granted him no excuses to propose that Taishakuten should return home to deal with trouble. Usually the Arimaspi raiders became active when the winter storms eased, but when Ashura actually could make profitable use of their raids, they thwarted him. It had seemed almost personal.

While he could have simply dismissed Taishakuten from court without a reason, it would have been a deep insult, and such high-handedness might have unnecessarily disturbed other members of the court. They were always a little on the turbulent side, and he didn't want to rile them further. After his dreadful experiences during Sunbirth, Ashura wanted a bit of peace.

Fai's artful performance had provided Ashura with an unexceptional reason to suggest that Taishakuten return home. None of Ashura's councilors, all of whom were familiar with Fai's insecurities and emotional troubles, had faulted him for indulging the child's apparent discomfort, especially when there were no pressing issues that required Taishakuten's continued presence at court. Even Taishakuten himself had appeared to understand the problem and departed with humor and good grace. He was accustomed to inspiring fear in children. Ashura smiled wryly. And in adults, too.

Any serious business that emerged could be handled through magical communications or the use of ordinary messengers, as usual. Besides, Ashura and the bulk of his court would be making the annual progress to the Southlands in a couple of months, anyway. Less pressing matters could wait until then, and any remaining ruffled feathers smoothed over at that time.

He planned to take Fai along on the trip, despite the child's wariness of Taishakuten. Ashura had promised Fai that they would visit the warmer parts of Seresu during the brief summer months. No other place in the country compared in that regard to the Southlands, and really, Fai needed to grow accustomed to Taishakuten. The warlord could not be avoided forever, so perhaps occasional meetings would help Fai to gradually overcome his apprehensions. Additionally, Ashura planned to stop by Clissin so that he could introduce Fai to his new property and people.

A piercing whistle interrupted Ashura's idle musings, stabbing right through his head and making him wince. He deliberately didn't look up from his work, upon which he had accomplished very little, and told himself not to express irritation at the latest renewal of the recurrent, shrill noise. Instead, he forced himself to focus on his task, which really did require his attention. These were important spells he was designing, for both himself and perhaps even for Fai. He hoped to use them to protect himself from traps the dark sorcerer might have set in the veils over his dreams, as he intended to resume his quest for a solution to his and Fai's future dilemma as soon as possible. The King's Sacrifice had been a harsh, ugly reminder that he should not procrastinate at that particular task.

Or rather, he corrected himself, he was attempting to design some protective spells, when he wasn't woolgathering. Not that it mattered whether he daydreamed or worked with unflagging dedication. Erratic, off-key whistling kept annihilating his concentration at irregular intervals.

Fai stood in the center of the main room, practicing his levitation magic. After the bookcase incident, Ashura had devised a new training exercise, and had Fai picking up random items from a pile on the floor and adding them to the collection he currently kept suspended in midair. At the moment this array of floating detritus included a handful of spoons, five books, two pillows, and a few feather quills. Unfortunately, Fai had decided that he should whistle while practicing.

That Fai could keep such a wide variety of objects levitating while he also whistled was quite impressive, actually. Impressive, and extremely aggravating.

Ashura again tried to focus on his own work. He had an idea for a dream defense, jotted down a series of protective spell-runes quickly, and then lost his entire train of thought as Fai hit an excruciatingly bad high note.

He firmly reminded himself that he wanted Fai to behave like a normal child. He also reminded himself that this was his own fault, and gritted his teeth while he suffered in silence.

During the Sunbirth court, he had asked Tancred to be nice to Fai. Tancred had complied, and as part of that compliance—or perhaps as retaliation—he had taught Fai to whistle. Since then, Fai had found a great many opportunities to exercise his newfound lack of musical talent. Ashura wasn't sure if he would ever forgive his nephew.

The tooth-jarring whistling continued, broke off abruptly on a sharp, upward tweet, then, after a few nice, quiet moments, resumed again. Sooner or later, Ashura told himself, the novelty would wear off. Eventually Fai would no longer find his new skill so fascinating. Surely, surely, he would soon lose interest. Ashura wondered if he was hoping in vain.

Fai managed a particularly awful series of random tones, and in defeat Ashura decided to add music lessons to the child's educational curriculum.

Finally, he couldn't take it any longer. He looked up to say something, anything, to get Fai to stop. Then he noticed how some of the pillows trembled when Fai hit certain notes. Different notes, and the spoons shivered. That was interesting. Ashura wondered if Fai had noticed yet. He didn't think so. Fai seemed more focused on the levitation, and appeared to just be whistling absently, without any conscious thought or intent. Or, unfortunately, without even a simple tune in mind.

Music was occasionally used to control magic, although usually by song. The Völur, for example, often sang their spells. Even Ashura sometimes sang a spell. It seemed Fai also had that particular gift, although in his case the "music" was his off-key whistling.

Music lessons had just become a high priority, or Fai's annoying new habit, combined with his immense and growing reserves of magical power, might quickly become dangerous.

Fai hit a truly bad note, and every single item in the collection he held aloft shuddered as though in pain. Ashura found himself in the unenviable position of sympathizing with inanimate objects.

"Fai," he finally said.

Fai stopped whistling—and what a mercy that was!—and looked over at him. Ashura noted with approval and pride that even though Fai's attention had been distracted from his task, he kept his collection neatly levitated and held firmly in place, without even the slightest threat that anything might shift or fall. There should be no more bookcase accidents.

"That's very good, Fai," Ashura said, indicating Fai's floating assortment of odds and ends. "Your levitation skills show superior achievement. I'll have you know that many fully trained, adult mages can't keep so many things levitated so well without their complete attention on their task, as you are doing now. Most excellent work."

Fai seemed to glow at the praise, although how that was possible without even a trace of a smile, Ashura didn't know. He just knew Fai could pull it off.

"Thank you," Fai said. "Should I let them down now?"

"If you wish."

Fai carefully directed each item to return to its place in the pile on the floor, one by one, in the same order he had levitated them.

As he watched the operation, Ashura stayed silent, considering his next words. He didn't want to say anything that might discourage the child. Fai already suffered from poor self-esteem in a number of areas, although at least magic wasn't one of them. Ashura had gone to great lengths to avoid adding magic to the list, and did not want to undermine that work. Besides that, anything even remotely negative he said about the whistling had the potential to crush Fai. He needed to tread carefully and put a positive light on the topic.

While he was working out a benign way to talk to Fai about improving his whistling and applying it to his magical studies, the whistler in question came over to him and inspected Ashura's own work.

Fai said, "That looks complicated." He peered at Ashura's notes. "I recognize the protection spell-runes, and those are for dreams...and that group is for deflecting attacks..."

Ashura kept quiet and let Fai work out what he could. The notes he had jotted down were just incomplete ideas that he had yet to form into actual, meaningful spells, so he wasn't worried that Fai would divine anything he shouldn't from them, and he was curious what Fai would make of them. He didn't have to wait long.

Fai looked up at him. "It looks like you're making defenses against bad dreams. Is that right? Are you trying to fix your bad dreams?"

"Something like that," Ashura admitted. He added honestly, "There is no way to eliminate my dreams, but I am trying to create a spell that will protect me from certain unpleasant aspects that I may encounter in them." That was certainly understated, but he did hope to shield himself from any traps the dark sorcerer might have set.

"Oh," said Fai, looking a little deflated. "I was hoping there was a way to get rid of nightmares."

"A spell tailored for my dreams wouldn't work for you, Fai," Ashura informed him gently, knowing exactly what Fai was really asking. Even if it were possible, this particular set of spells would not be targeted at ordinary dreams. "Besides, nightmares, while unpleasant, often serve a useful purpose. You may not believe this, but they can function as a healing mechanism."

"Nightmares?" Fai's voice was filled with disbelief.

"They allow your sleeping mind to deal with issues in different ways than when you are awake. Their frequency and severity has declined over the past several months, has it not?"

Fai nodded doubtfully.

Ashura knew that Fai didn't wake screaming from night terrors very often anymore. At least that had become a rare occurrence. He had also taught Fai a few mental tricks to try to ameliorate the worst of them, with mixed results. In his opinion, Fai still had too many bad dreams, but they did seem to be improving. "Over time, they should decrease still further. It takes a long time, Fai." He wondered who he was trying to convince, himself or Fai. "One should not try to affect them with magic unless it becomes clear that nothing else will help."

"Like yours?" Fai asked in a challenging tone.

Fai's increasingly common shows of spirit always pleased Ashura, as they were indications that the child was gradually healing. "Mine have afflicted me for as long as I can remember, Fai. No magic will ever stop me from having them. I only seek to affect a very particular part of them."

His weren't normal nightmares, but he couldn't explain that to Fai. Ashura had never found any way to prevent visions of the future from tormenting him, though it hadn't been for lack of trying. He changed the subject, saying briskly, "In any case, I didn't intend to talk to you about dreams. I wanted to discuss your whistling."

Fai brightened. Again, Ashura marveled at how the child could be so expressive without ever smiling. Something about the eyes, he decided. Fai announced happily, "Tancred taught me over Sunbirth."

"Yes, I know." Ashura smiled ruefully. "I was wondering if you realized that you could affect your magic with your whistling."

"Really?"

"So you didn't notice. It is true, Fai. I saw it while you were practicing your levitation. The pillows and spoons trembled when you hit certain notes."

Fai looked intrigued. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you will be able to control your magic through whistling alone. It is a very special gift. I would like you to start taking beginning music lessons, so you can..." Ashura thought quickly, seeking a way to phrase matters that wouldn't harm Fai's growing self-confidence, "...so you can learn more complex and sophisticated means of utilizing this ability." Never mind that it would be a significant improvement if Fai just learned to whistle in key.

Fai's brows furrowed while he sorted through that complicated statement. He said gamely, if uncertainly, "Okay."

The child always looked so adorable when he concentrated like that. Ashura wanted to hug him, but instead just said, "It is not intended to be a burden, Fai. You will only need to study music one or two hours a week to gain sufficient skill to begin applying it to your magical studies."

Fai didn't look convinced. "Do you really think I can do magic by whistling?"

"I believe so, yes."

"How?"

"You will learn to associate musical notes with magical meanings and put them together into phrases that describe your desire and purpose as you shape your magic, much like the way spell-runes are used. But you first must be able to create and sustain the notes knowledgeably."

"That's why I have to take music lessons?"

"Yes."

"So right now my whistling is bad?"

Ashura repressed a wince. He had tried so hard to avoid this part of the discussion, but as happened so often, Fai perceived too much. "Fai, your whistling is fine," he lied. Well, it wasn't really a lie. It was fine for a young boy, just not for anyone else within hearing distance. However, this course of study was nonnegotiable. The simple fact was that Fai's whistling affected his magic, therefore it had to be trained before it became dangerous. "It merely needs to be perfected so you can use it to control your magic. You will need to know the tones and the names of the notes, and the theories of how they relate to one another and are put together into music."

"Oh." Fai looked thoughtful, rather than dismayed or tearful. For one blissfully deluded moment, Ashura felt relieved. Then Fai said, "So if I learn this, I'll be able to do magic just by whistling. That could be really sneaky," and an unholy light came into those expressive blue eyes.

Ashura hadn't considered that aspect. Of course, the potential for mischief would be the first thing on a young boy's mind. Naturally.

He wrestled down his rising alarm. It would be quite a few years before Fai possessed that much knowledge, control, and skill. He hoped. It occurred to him that Fai's adolescence was going to be...interesting.

Now that he had Fai's agreement, he wanted to change the subject. Desperately. "Since this is decided, let us move on. Show me how your defensive shields are coming along."

Fortunately, Fai was still young enough to be easily distracted. He also enjoyed showing off, which he proceeded to do with enthusiasm.


	36. Chapter 36

Despite Yūi's initial doubts, the music lessons turned out to be enjoyable, after all.

He liked music already, and the king had instructed the tutor to focus less on theory and more on helping Yūi make actual music with his whistling. The tutor helped Yūi learn to hear a pitch, and then to match it and hold the tone. He also taught Yūi some simple songs. Yūi liked making music with his whistling. He enjoyed listening to the court musicians, and thought that maybe one day he'd be able to whistle along with them. The music teacher also gave him some voice instruction, which Yūi liked because he knew the king could sing, and he wanted to be able to do it, too. But really, Yūi liked whistling better.

He wanted to include it in his magic right away, but both the king and Lord Suhail told him he needed to learn more about music and music theory first. It was enough, they said, that he was learning to control the sounds his whistling created.

That was frustrating. He had never seen the effects of his whistling that the king had described, and now they didn't want him to whistle at all while he practiced his magic. He thought that quite unfair. Maybe when they weren't around, he could try some simple magic and whistle along with it, just to see what happened.

Then again, maybe he shouldn't. What if something blew up? That happened much too often when he tried something new. An explosion wouldn't be very good at all. He thought he could protect himself now with a shield, but he wasn't absolutely sure that he'd be able to remember the spell in an emergency, and besides, there would be no way to hide the effects of an explosion. The king would know Yūi had disobeyed, and be disappointed in him. Yūi wouldn't be able to stand feeling bad about that.

Reluctantly, Yūi decided he probably shouldn't experiment with whistling and magic on his own. At least, not just yet. After he got better at both, maybe then he could try. With that decision made, he attempted to focus again on his current lesson, which really wasn't holding his attention very well.

At the moment, he was in the main room of his quarters with Lord Suhail, who was giving a long, boring lecture about the nature and importance of a magician's will and ability to manifest intent. Apparently, a magician's will was much different than an ordinary person's will. It needed to be stronger and more focused in order to shape and control magic. Yūi had figured out that much. The rest of the speech flew over his head, which was why he had tuned it out and thought about more interesting things.

Lord Suhail stopped preaching and gave him a considering look. "I suppose that's enough of that," he said dryly. "You learn so quickly and concentrate so well, I sometimes forget your age. You should complain more, child, so I can tell when to stop. I know you aren't so shy with the king."

Yūi stared blankly at him for the odd criticism. When he wasn't with the king or Lady Kendappa, Yūi always tried to avoid misbehaving in obvious ways. He knew the king didn't mind, and in fact seemed to like it, which Yūi thought was strange. He also understood that sort of behavior was all right in Seresu, but he was still sometimes afraid of how other people would react. It had been different when Mielu and Virender had been at court. They hadn't cared a pin for what anyone else thought. Yūi could misbehave with them, and hadn't worried very much at all about any consequences.

But without them around, he was more careful. Some behaviors that he had learned in Valeria, to avoid irritating the adults into noticing him, were long ingrained in him and were never really forgotten. Sometimes they still governed his conduct even after four months in the more permissive environment of Luval Castle, though Yūi was no longer concerned about doing something wrong and being killed or imprisoned for it.

Lord Suhail sighed. "Never mind," he said. "I should remember better. Now, you shall practice an active seek spell again." He gestured, and a pile of wooden blocks appeared on a table. He picked one up. "Your control has improved a great deal. See if you can find this block without damaging it at all." He apported it into hiding.

Yūi had stopped blowing up the blocks over two weeks ago. However, sometimes he still singed or cracked them. As he attempted to focus in a way that wouldn't cause damage to the hidden block, loud, argumentative voices erupted from outside the door. Alarmed, he stopped what he was doing. He recognized the people who were fighting. Usually they didn't sound so angry with each other, though.

Lord Suhail sighed again. "A moment, child. No one could possibly concentrate with that going on. I will see to it." He walked to the door and opened it.

In the hallway stood King Ashura and Lady Kendappa. Both looked belligerent. Lady Kendappa waved a piece of paper under the king's nose.

"You still haven't looked at this list, have you?" Lady Kendappa was strident and completely aggravated. "You've had months now!"

King Ashura retorted, "No, and I won't. I refuse to marry a complete stranger just because the council—" He stopped abruptly and glared at Lord Suhail. "Yes, my lord?" he said calmly, as though he hadn't just been in a shouting match with his cousin.

Lord Suhail bowed. "Your Majesty, my lady. The, uh, commotion is interfering with Lord Fai's lesson."

Lady Kendappa said, "Forgive us. We'll go discuss this matter in the king's office."

The king made a cutting gesture with one hand. "No, we won't. We're done." With that, he stalked off.

Lady Kendappa scowled after him. "Stubborn, idiotic, fool of a..." She ceased her muttered litany, and returned her attention to Lord Suhail. "There should be no more disturbances today, my lord." Looking past him to Yūi, she smiled and said reassuringly, "You carry on with your lesson, Fai. This is an old argument, and it won't upset the king for very long." Then she also departed.

Lord Suhail sighed yet again. He closed the door and returned to Yūi.

Yūi stared at the door, feeling as though his whole world had dropped out from under him. He couldn't make himself utter a single word. Vaguely, he was aware that he was trembling ever so slightly.

"Child? What is wrong?" Lord Suhail asked gently. "You mustn't let them overset you. Surely you know by now that they often bicker."

Yūi wanted to protest, but he still couldn't speak. That hadn't been bickering. That had been a full blown fight. And the topic... He stared at the closed door and blinked rapidly.

"Fai?" Lord Suhail tried again. "Do not be so upset, Fai. It's a good thing that they fight. It is an outlet of sorts for the king. He cannot argue like that with anyone else. Or rather, no one else can argue like that with him."

Yūi finally found his voice. "He's so mad..."

"Yes, he is. It will pass. It always does."

Lord Suhail didn't seem to understand. Yūi wrung his hands. "Is the king getting married?"

"Ah, so that's the problem," Lord Suhail said knowingly. He smiled and shook his head. "No, the king is not getting married. That is quite obvious to anyone who is not deaf."

"But Lady Kendappa... That fight... Can the council force him? Is that why they were fighting?"

"No one can force Ashura to do anything he doesn't really want to do," Lord Suhail said, disgruntled. "He often goes along with the council because he knows his duty or because of political expediency, or other...other concerns...often just to keep the peace, but he can also be quite stubborn. If he ever decides to remarry, it will be on his own terms. You needn't worry about this."

"Why do the council and Lady Kendappa want him to get married?" Yūi felt a little less ill, hearing Lord Suhail's confirmation that the king wasn't going to get married. He knew he shouldn't have gotten so worried. He'd heard the king himself say he wasn't going to get married.

"It is because of the succession, Fai. He needs an heir."

Yūi knew that, but now it seemed so real... "But I thought Tancred..." he began.

"Tancred is in all ways suitable, but it would be better if the king's heir were his own son."

Yes, it would be a good thing if the king had an heir of his own. Yūi knew that, too. He'd been born into a royal family, after all, so he was aware of the importance of that particular necessity. He just didn't want to think about it, and he didn't understand why. So instead, he focused on the immediate threat over the longer term one. "Who does the council want him to marry? Lady Eliina?"

Lord Suhail looked startled at that. "Oh, my, no, child. That would hardly be appropriate. There is a list of suitable ladies that he should choose from. They are all of the proper blood and rank."

That explained the mysterious list Lady Kendappa had been waving about. "So, if he needs to get married to have an heir, why doesn't he?" Now that Yūi felt a little calmer, he was able to ask the next question that troubled him. "Is it...is it because of me?"

In the past, so many bad things had been his and Fai's fault. Was this his fault, too? Would the council blame him if the king didn't get married and have his own heir? Would they convince the king to send Yūi away?

"No, Fai," Lord Suhail reassured him. "This battle goes back several years. The king just prefers not to remarry yet, that is all."

Yūi relaxed a little more to hear that he wasn't to blame, and then he wondered if there was more to it than just the king's whim. He recalled that Mielu had told him that King Ashura had been devastated by the death of his wife, and he wondered if maybe that was why the king had resisted remarrying for so long. But Yūi knew no adult would ever tell him the truth about that. Mielu had said that no adult would ever speak of it.

Yūi also recalled the king's complaint that he didn't want to marry a stranger. Yūi didn't think that was a problem. Lady Kendappa knew all about the king's sadness. With her around, why would King Ashura need to marry a stranger? They loved each other very much already, and they understood each other.

That idea wasn't shocking at all to Yūi. He rather liked it. It was a perfect solution. That way, even if the king was forced to get married, things could stay almost the same.

"He should marry Lady Kendappa," Yūi stated with utter simplicity.

Lord Suhail looked taken aback. "You shouldn't say that out loud, Fai," he remonstrated.

"Why not? They'd be perfect together."

"It is not practical, Fai."

"Why?" Yūi persisted.

Lord Suhail looked at him thoughtfully, and sighed. "Fai, I will tell you why, but you must never repeat what I say. It is not secret, and you may overhear gossip about it, but hearing it from you would only upset the king and Lady Kendappa and make them unhappy. Do you understand?"

Yūi nodded. "I promise not to talk about it."

Lord Suhail still appeared reluctant, but he said, "Fai, their marriage has been considered, but there are too many obstacles. For one, they are first cousins. There are issues of consanguinity."

"Consanguinity?" The word was unfamiliar to Yūi.

"It means they are too closely related by blood," Lord Suhail explained. "Also, because of their positions, their marriages are matters of state and should be used to make blood ties with rulers of other countries or with the greatest noble families in this country. This is not possible if they marry each other. Such a marriage would be counterproductive and against Seresu's best interests."

"Oh," said Yūi. That did sound important. It also sounded depressing. Yūi felt sorry for both the king and Lady Kendappa.

"However," Lord Suhail continued, "those things could be overcome if the two of them desired such a union, which they most emphatically do not. They were raised together as siblings, Fai. They behave and interact as though they are brother and sister, not cousins, no matter how they address one another. That is the most important reason of all. Neither would ever consider the idea, nor even accept mention of it peaceably, so you should never speak of it to either of them." Lord Suhail grimaced and looked slightly ill, as though he were remembering some terribly horrific experience.

"Why were they raised together?" Fai asked, abandoning the distressing idea of the king's possible remarriage for this more interesting topic.

"Lady Kendappa's parents both died when she was a very young child, so Ashura's father took her into his household."

"Like me?"

"Very much like, yes, although she was much younger than you. I recall that she was barely two years old at the time."

"Her parents must have been pretty young when they died," Yūi speculated.

"Far too young," Lord Suhail said with a sigh. "It happens too often in that family."

Yūi got worried again. "What do you mean? The king and Lady Kendappa won't also die young, will they?"

Lord Suhail's eyes got wide. "Oh, child, I didn't mean anything like that. I only meant it was a shame about Lady Kendappa's parents, and then I thought about the king's brother. He also died too young. That is all I meant."

Yūi gnawed his lower lip and tugged at his sleeve. The king didn't have many living relatives. Had the others died too young, like the king's brother and Lady Kendappa's parents? Then there was the king's late wife, who nobody would talk about. She had died young, too. Yūi didn't know how to express this new fear.

"Fai, I am sorry I upset you," Lord Suhail said. "Don't worry so. I promise you, neither the king nor Lady Kendappa will die before their appointed times."

Yūi nodded and resolved to keep a closer eye on the king, just in case. Another thought came to him, something he'd wondered about off and on since he'd come to Seresu. "Is that why everyone was so upset when King Ashura left this world to find me? Were they afraid he might die, like his other relatives?"

Lord Suhail inhaled sharply and turned a shocked look onto Yūi. "Child, whatever are you thinking?"

"You were one of the people who were upset with him, so you should know what was going on, right? I thought everyone was so mad at him, but Lady Kendappa said they were just really worried because he disappeared. Why would so many people be so worried, if they weren't afraid something bad might have happened to him?"

The old wizard visibly calmed himself. "Child, everyone was concerned because nobody could find him. So yes, you are correct in that. People were afraid that something bad had happened to him. It was impossible for us to track him, or even sense his very existence. That's one of the reasons Ashura's not supposed to go world-walking. Even before he became king, it was a great worry."

"People didn't like it even when he wasn't the king?"

"You have to understand, Fai, no one else in this whole world can travel to other dimensions. Even if we could locate him, no one would be able to go help him if he became lost or got into trouble." Lord Suhail smiled reminiscently. "He used to sneak off like that every so often. No one knew where he went, just that he'd disappeared completely. Once he even took Kendappa with him. There was great consternation when we finally figured out what was going on. Can you imagine what it was like, having the heir to the throne out gallivanting in other worlds, where no one could reach him at all? And back then no one had any real power to stop him. Now, at least, we can remind him of his oaths. He takes them seriously."

"How did he learn to travel to other worlds, if there was no one else who could do it?" Yūi asked, ravenously curious. "Who taught him?"

"To be honest," Lord Suhail said absently, "I think he just found a spell in a book and tried it out. He was always reckless with magic." He suddenly gave Yūi a penetrating look and admonished, "Don't you go pulling any stunts like that. Life has been difficult enough here already, without having to worry about antics like that from you, as well."

"No, sir," Yūi said, falsely contrite. He did, indeed, plan to find interesting spells and try to make them work, once he could read well enough to study the really good books in the castle library.

"Hrmph," said Lord Suhail, eyeing him with blatant disbelief. "Well, if you do decide to try it someday, be sure to have him teach you. There's no one else who could help you if something went wrong."

"I thought he wasn't supposed to leave this world," Yūi said with spurious innocence. Obviously, the king would travel to other worlds if he thought it was important enough.

"He's not, but that's beside the point. We both know he's capable of it if he feels it's necessary," Lord Suhail said, as though he had read Yūi 's thoughts. "Besides, no one would blame him if he world-walked to find you."

"Do you think I could really do it? Travel to other worlds?"

"As to that, I honestly don't know," Lord Suhail admitted. "You certainly have the power for it. However, Ashura once told me that it takes more than power and knowledge, that there's something else involved. He had a hard time describing what that quality was. But if anyone else in this world can learn, I believe it will be you."

Yūi was pleased to hear that. Even back when he and Fai had been imprisoned, he'd planned to try traveling to other worlds. It was pleasing to think he hadn't just been indulging in foolish, impossible dreams. "That must have been nice for him," Yūi mused wistfully, "being able to get away like that any time he wanted."

"It wasn't so nice for him when he got back," Lord Suhail grumbled. "The heir to a kingdom does not have a normal life or the freedom to always do as he pleases, as you should know, Fai. Still, the repercussions didn't stop him from doing it again. Sometimes I think he'd have preferred the life of a court wizard, spending his days in research or making interesting new spells. He does like to create new spells, you know."

Yūi nodded. He'd seen the king doodling out ideas for spells many times in the past few months.

"However, he was first born, rather than a younger son, so that was never even an option. Not that it mattered; his fate was decided before he was ever even conceived in his mother's womb. Even if he'd been born last and least in his family," Lord Suhail said, "he would have ended up on the throne."

"Why?"

"Because he is God-Touched," Lord Suhail said, a small, strange smile playing on his lips.

Yūi stared at him, uncomprehending. "What does that mean?"

Lord Suhail blinked and shook his head. "It means he's special, that the gods love him. He doesn't believe it, but it is true."

Yūi considered that. After Sunbirth, King Ashura had apologized again about the King's Sacrifice and then had a discussion with Yūi about his religious preferences. The king had seemed to think it was important, and had been sorry he hadn't talked about it before. Yūi, though, had never been troubled by the subject. He really didn't remember much about Valeria's religion, just the name of its hell and those of a few deities, spirits, and demons. Surprisingly, some of those beings had had the same names as certain ancient gods of Seresu. The king had speculated that that was another of those odd alignments between their worlds, like their shared spoken language, the cold climate, and some of the food.

Yūi himself didn't care much about religion or gods. What had gods ever done for him? His life had been full of unending, unbearable misery before he'd come to Seresu. Yūi hadn't said any of that, but it hadn't mattered. King Ashura had told Yūi that he could honor whatever gods he pleased, or even none at all if that was what suited him.

From that talk, Yūi had gotten the impression that the king didn't like his own religion very much. He doubted now that Lord Suhail's statements would please King Ashura.

Lord Suhail continued, "Ashura can do things that no other magician in this country has been able to do in uncountable generations. How else could he have found you? How else could he have done what was needful to bring you here, to us, from far across the infinity of worlds?"

On occasion, Yūi had wondered about that. However, he accepted the king's explanation that he was so powerful that he could call across worlds. When he paid attention, Yūi could sense King Ashura's aura most of the time, so he also believed he had unknowingly called for the king, possibly through that magical connection he felt. He had certainly screamed enough to the heavens and to anyone who would listen. Was it really such a surprise that someone powerful had heard? And not just the king had heard, but that other scary sorcerer, too. Yūi was glad that he couldn't feel that sorcerer's presence the way he felt the king's.

"I don't know for sure how King Ashura found me," Yūi said, very quietly. As always, the mere thought of that sorcerer made him nervous and unhappy. He didn't want to talk about anything that might bring up the terrible past and the equally terrible future, and the horrible things he would one day do when he left Seresu on his inevitable journey. He clasped his hands together tightly and bowed his head. "I'm just glad he did."

He heard Lord Suhail begin to pace across the room. "I have upset you again, Fai," the old wizard said. "I am sorry. Believe me when I say that everyone in the castle is glad he found you. You have no idea how glad."

"Why?" Yūi whispered the question. It touched on something he had never really understood about the people in Luval Castle. Deep down, he just couldn't accept it. Why would anyone be glad that he was with them? He was a terrible person. Old memories that he had tried so very hard to bury rose to torment him.

Lord Suhail smiled. "Because of what you are to him, Fai. Because you make him happy. You're a blessing to the whole country."

Yūi remembered that Lady Kendappa had said something like that, too, but from Lord Suhail it sounded different. He stared down at the floor, not really comprehending and feeling horribly depressed. He chewed on his lower lip. Then something happened that drove all thoughts from his mind and almost stopped his heart with terror: One of his teeth wobbled.

He shrieked in pure, unadulterated panic.


	37. Chapter 37

Ashura stood in Fai's quarters, facing his panicky foster son. The king had been abruptly called into this situation by a magical message from an almost equally alarmed chief wizard. Through the link, Suhail had explained rather sketchily that Fai had become distressed by hearing that the council wanted Ashura to remarry, and had then worried about Ashura's "impending demise," which had inexplicably led to a discussion of Ashura's world-walking to fetch Fai. Discovering a loose milk tooth on top of all that seemed to have triggered every insecurity Fai possessed.

"Fai?" Ashura queried, after Suhail had departed with undignified haste.

"It's loose!" Fai wailed. He gingerly touched one of his lower front teeth. "It's going to fall out! Isn't it? Oh, it's going to fall out!"

"Fai, it's all right."

"No, it's not! Will I die?" Fai cried to Ashura. "Am I going to fall to pieces?"

You already are, Ashura thought, but had sense enough not to vocalize that. Actually, this was a good sign. It indicated that Fai's body was that of a normal child and healthy enough to go through ordinary growth processes. Ashura needed to check with the healers to be certain, but he thought Fai was around the right age to start losing his milk teeth. While Ashura knew these things varied greatly from child to child, still he was relieved that it had finally begun. Despite the assurances the healers had given regarding Fai's health, Ashura had feared on occasion that Fai might have some developmental difficulties due to his imprisonment and near-starvation in the time-distorted pit. However, the loose tooth gave Ashura more confidence that all was well. Now he just had to find a way to convince Fai that this event was desirable, and get him to calm down.

At least this tantrum didn't have any undesired side effects. Fai had gained an impressive amount of control over his magic in the past few months, Ashura thought proudly. There wasn't even a hint of magical fallout from his panic. Just emotional fallout.

Ashura knelt down in front of Fai and gently took hold of his shoulders. "Fai, you're going to be fine. You're not going to fall apart or die from this."

Fai made a sound like a cross between a sob and a hiccup. "Will it get better? Will it stop wiggling again?"

"No, Fai, it won't. It will fall out." Ashura stopped, wincing at another incoherent wail. Had no one ever explained these things to Fai before? He reminded himself of what Fai's early childhood had been like, and concluded that this was all new to the poor little boy.

Ashura enfolded Fai in a hug. "Hush, child, it's fine," he said, stroking Fai's hair. "This is a normal part of growing up, just like getting taller. Everyone loses their milk teeth."

"Teeth?" Fai pulled back, on the verge of complete hysteria. "I'll lose more teeth? All of them?"

No doubt the poor child was imagining himself going through life toothless with bare gums. "Fai, you will only lose temporary, childhood teeth. New, adult teeth will grow in and replace them. The new teeth will be permanent. It is normal. It happens to everyone."

"It does?"

"Yes," Ashura confirmed. "It does."

"Even to you?"

"Yes, it happened to me, too."

"Does getting new teeth hurt?"

Ashura raised his brows. "No, I do not recall that it did." Not that he remembered very much about it. It had been so long ago, and any pain involved had been long forgotten. Still, he thought he would remember if it had been horrible, so plainly it hadn't been. "There may be a tiny bit of soreness or achiness," he speculated, "but that should be all."

"How long does it take?" Fai looked alarmed again. "Will my teeth all fall out at once?"

"No, Fai, it does not happen all at once. It is a gradual process that occurs over a period of several years."

"I'll-I'll keep losing teeth for years?" Fai's voice wavered.

"But new ones will grow in to replace the lost ones. Fai, this is nothing terrible. It is something to celebrate. It is an important part of growing up."

"Growing up? I'm growing up?" Fai said. After Ashura's repetition, that part had finally registered.

"Yes, Fai, you are," Ashura said with a warm smile. "This is a part of that process."

Looking less worried and more thoughtful, Fai used a finger to gingerly wiggle his loose tooth.

"Don't do that, Fai," Ashura said automatically.

"Why not? Will something bad happen?"

"You will hurt yourself. On its own, the tooth will gradually get looser and finally fall out. If you try to pull it out too soon, you will hurt yourself and make yourself bleed. You don't want that, do you?"

"No." Fai dropped the offending hand from his mouth.

"Then leave it alone." Ashura stood again, and reflected with resignation that he was starting to sound an awful lot like his father. He distantly remembered a few times when he'd proudly displayed his own loose milk teeth to his father, who had exclaimed with apparent delight and then told Ashura to leave them alone, as well. In hindsight, his father had probably never been any more thrilled by such a demonstration than Ashura felt now. Some things never changed.

"Okay," Fai said, but his fingers were already creeping back to the loose tooth.

"Fai," said Ashura.

The hand dropped again.

It was a losing battle, Ashura knew. He needed to instruct all of Fai's tutors, guards, and servants to nag the child about this. Gentle wiggling was all right, but tugging needed to be kept to a minimum. With luck, Fai wouldn't accidentally tear out his first loose tooth too soon. If at all possible, Ashura didn't want this tooth to cause Fai any significant pain. That kind of bad first experience would just make the child dread losing his other milk teeth.

Ashura decided the best thing to do for now was to distract Fai from his loose tooth, and also clear up some of those other misconceptions Suhail had warned him of. He debated among them, and chose the most immediate and least alarming to him. "Fai, I understand you overheard my argument with Kendappa and that it troubled you."

Fai inhaled sharply and stared up into Ashura's face. Then his gaze slid aside. "It's okay," he mumbled.

"No, it's not. Let's go sit down." He led Fai over to the chairs by the hearth, and waited until Fai had settled in one. Ashura took the chair opposite. "Fai," he said, tackling the issue head on, "I have no plans to remarry."

Fai mumbled another "Okay" and nodded his head. His hand went to his mouth and he fingered his loose tooth.

"Stop that, Fai."

The hand fell to Fai's lap, where it joined the other. Fai interlaced and clenched his fingers until his knuckles showed white.

Ashura sighed. "Fai, you were willing to talk to Suhail about this. Why not me? I'm the one you're angry with."

Fai's head wrenched up at that. "I'm not mad at you," he protested.

"No? Then why won't you speak with me about this? I will tell you what you wish to know."

"It's none of my business." Fai found his fingers to be a source of immense fascination.

Ashura regarded him, seriously concerned. Fai's full set of anxieties seemed to be out in force. Everything about the child's downcast posture proclaimed his insecurity. And maybe, Ashura thought, security was really what this dilemma was all about. Even the most insignificant change in the official royal household could disrupt a dependent's life, and this matter was hardly minor. Perhaps, as Tancred had once feared he might lose his place to Fai, Fai believed he might be displaced by a new wife.

Ashura hadn't thought of that before. Fai didn't seem to have any issues with Ashura's current mistress, but a mistress and a wife held radically different positions in a royal court. Perhaps Fai feared a new queen might influence Ashura to ignore or abandon him?

"Fai, I assure you, I am not getting married," Ashura repeated. "There will be no such changes to the royal household." Not ever, he reflected sadly. Not with the unbearable future facing him.

"You should," Fai mumbled, still staring down at his hands. "I know you need an heir of your own. All kings do."

An heir? Fai was worried about some baby that didn't even exist? Why—?

Oh.

No wonder Fai was distressed. Any child would be.

Due to his dreadful background, Fai could be quite a contradiction. He often behaved in abnormally mature ways for a boy his age, and yet he could easily slip into hysteria, as he had done upon discovering his loose milk tooth. The dichotomy made it difficult to predict his behavior and find ways to soothe him even when his actual problem was obvious.

However, this particular fear was something no six- or seven-year-old, no matter how mature, could possibly handle in anything but an irrational, emotional manner. And Fai was in no ways normal. His past was horrific. Fear and anxiety were perfectly understandable responses to even the most nebulous threat of a new wife and child in Ashura's life.

Ashura moved to kneel in front of Fai's chair. He placed his hands on the armrests and gazed into the startled boy's face. "Fai," he said, "I swear to you that your place in my household and my life is secure. No matter what happens, I will not put you aside. You are mine for as long as you wish it."

Fai looked at him with a peculiar expression. At least the child didn't seem so downtrodden anymore. Fai said, "As long as I wish? I wish—" He hesitated.

"Yes, Fai?"

"I wish I could stay forever," Fai said in a rush. He opened his mouth as if to say more, then closed it again. An odd look came over his young face. Twisting his hands together, he glanced away and said, "An heir comes first."

Ashura wondered what Fai had really wanted to say. Too many of the child's insecurities and fears were in play. Ashura wasn't sure how to respond, except with the obvious facts that Fai already knew.

"An heir always comes first," Ashura confirmed. "As you have seen for yourself, Tancred always came first while he was here at Luval. Did you feel your place threatened by him? It would be much the same for this hypothetical heir we are now discussing."

"But your own son..."

Ashura wanted to sigh at Fai's persistence, but controlled the impulse. Fai would never have mentioned the subject if Ashura himself hadn't brought it up. No, Fai would have hugged his pain and fears within his heart and made himself perfectly miserable until something new came along to distract him.

And it was all so pointless, Ashura thought unhappily. There would never be any new queen, nor any new heir. There couldn't be, not for him, not ever. He would not add more loved ones to the list of his future murder victims. But he couldn't tell Fai the truth about that. So how to reassure the child?

There would only ever be Fai. Fai was all Ashura had; only Fai had a chance to survive him. Fai was the only person in all of Seresu who Ashura would not one day slaughter. Ashura's own dreams had shown him that much, and he clung to that lonely, bittersweet lifeline like a drowning man.

Fai faced another doom, though, a different doom, and that Ashura would do anything to prevent. He just had to find a way.

But there seemed to be only one way, and it was too cruel...

That was many years distant. This was now, and now, Fai needed reassurance and a sense of security.

"Fai," Ashura said honestly, "you are all to me. Your place in my heart cannot change. Assuming this imaginary heir we are discussing is ever even born, there will be a significant age difference between the two of you. It would be even greater than the number of years between you and Tancred. An infant's place is in a nursery with his nurses. Your life would continue as it does now. And when this imaginary heir is the age you are now, you will be in your teens, learning how to take on adult responsibilities."

Looking thoughtful, Fai nodded. "Lord Suhail said..." He hesitated.

"Yes, child?"

Fai firmed his expression. "He said my place is like Lady Kendappa's."

Ashura was startled for a moment. It was truly an excellent example. Suhail had superb insight. "Indeed, she was raised here at court, as part of the royal household." Ashura smiled. "As one of the family, in fact."

"That's not so bad, then. She's really important." Fai untwisted his hands. "Lord Suhail said you and her, well, you're like brother and sister."

Ashura nodded. He didn't often consider it, but that was the relationship he and his late brother had shared with Kendappa for as long as he could remember. Suhail really should be commended for putting these ideas into Fai's head. Of course, Suhail shouldn't even have discussed the subject with Fai in the first place, so it was just as well he'd found an analogy palatable to both Fai and Ashura. "That is very true. And I hope you would regard any potential additions to the family in the same way."

Ashura stood up. "However, as I said before, it is not a likely happenstance. I do not plan to remarry, so this discussion is purely theoretical. I hope, Fai, that things can continue on between us as they have been."

"I—I'd like that, too." Fai appeared to have finally relaxed. His hand crept up again to wiggle the loose tooth, which had started this miserable discussion.

"Fai, don't do that," Ashura said, trying not to smile when Fai guiltily dropped his hand once more.

This was enough. Ashura put aside the other issues Suhail had warned him of: Fai's concern about Ashura's death, and the subject of how Ashura had traversed worlds to find Fai. Fai was calm now, and Ashura didn't want to upset him all over again. Surely those other topics would only distress the poor child, and really, they were irrelevant to the matters at hand. They could wait.

With luck, they would wait for many years.


	38. Chapter 38

It was late, past midnight. Holding the bedclothes and flask he carried tightly to his chest, Ashura gazed about the secret chamber of his ancestors, surveying the mess he had left the last time he had stood in this place.

He hadn't been down to the subterranean crypt since he'd brought Fai to Seresu. He'd left it that morning in a great rush, his mind disordered and frantic. Now he viewed the disarray he had left behind him. Not too bad, really. Five scrolls lay scattered near the entryway, plus one ancient stone tablet that sadly had been damaged when he'd been thrown down by the chamber's guardian spells. Those spells had prevented him from removing anything, but they hadn't prevented the top corner of the tablet from breaking off when it had hit the hard, unyielding floor.

Aside from the litter, the room had not changed. It still had nine walls, the number nine being sacred in the ancient religion, and still being of significance to Seresu's present day beliefs. The mystical torches burned brightly. The niches in the walls still held their scrolls and tablets, and the elaborate wall carvings and gem-work still remained. The central table supported its two spheres of polished fluorite and hematite. The only difference was that the two scrolls it had originally held—the accounts of King Donal, the previous Sacral King, and King Ronnsha, Donal's son, Chosen Successor, and executioner—now lay partially unfurled on the ground.

Ashura wondered why he had expected to find any differences. Would the chamber have mysteriously reordered itself just because he had avoided it for a handful of months? This place had remained unchanged for two thousand years. Seresu's Sacral Kings were intermittent and ephemeral, but this hateful room endured always.

The weight of the entire mountain seemed to press down on him. With a deep breath, Ashura set the bedding onto the chair at the table, then carefully placed the small, stoppered flask atop the pile. He bent to gather up the scrolls, putting Ronnsha and Donal's writings back on the table and the others in their original positions in their recesses.

He felt a twinge of regret when he picked up the stone tablet and the pieces that had broken from its corner. A small dusting of coarse powder from the breakage remained on the floor. Fortunately, the damage hadn't extended to the writing on its surface. He thought that he could magically reassemble it, if he wanted.

But why did he care? He was to be the last Sacral King, and the last King of Seresu. No other king would ever come to this room, read its contents, and learn from the words recorded therein that he had been condemned and accursed since before his birth. What did it matter if an old tablet had been damaged? All would be lost forever in seventeen years.

But there lingered a small hope in Ashura's breast that he could change that future, that it was possible, at least in some small way. Why else had he bothered to return here? Why else would he even try to fight against fate?

He decided against fixing the tablet, and set it into its place in the wall niche, along with the broken pieces. The powder he left alone, on the floor. He wouldn't waste any magic on repairs. He might very well need all he had, plus more, for what he planned for this night.

Not that he wanted to get into a magical battle. He only intended to do some investigation into the veils about his dreams. However, he was quite aware that even the simplest examination might be dangerous to him. His admittedly limited knowledge of the sadistic sorcerer who had created those cloaks and barriers told him to proceed with extreme caution.

He had come to this chamber because he wanted to be able to tap the power that sustained it, as he had done the night before he had obtained Fai. His own power maintained this place, having been drained from him by the spells that imbued every nook, every wall, the very firmament of the chamber, and he could draw on it even while dreaming. He also had defensive spells prepared and memorized.

He hoped he wouldn't need any of it, not any extra power, not any special defenses. He did not plan to attempt to pierce those dark veils again. Even if they didn't have any new defenses protecting them, to attack them would be a bad mistake. What Ashura really wanted to do was find a way to circumvent them. He only desired to see other dream paths, paths the sorcerer clearly didn't want Ashura to locate.

He glanced at the small flask with trepidation. It contained a light sleeping draught, something less potent than the drug Kendappa had given him some months ago after he had almost leapt from the eastern wall. He had always been wary of sleeping drugs, no matter their relative strength, because he had feared they would trap him with his dreams. And, in fact, the drug Kendappa had forced on him had done exactly that. He had been unable to escape from dreams, and had chosen to spend the night in an ordinary if somewhat gruesome nightmare rather than face the horrors of the future.

Nonetheless, before that, the drug had freed his dreams from the sorcerer's cloaks and veils. Under its influence, he had still seen visions of the blood-drenched future, of himself as a madman. But they had been different visions, things he had never seen before. That gave him hope that drugs might again help him to see farther than he was currently allowed. He hoped the sleeping draught would aid his escape from the sorcerer's dark veils.

If it didn't, though, he would be trapped with not just his dreams, but also the potential consequences of triggering the sorcerer's defenses. That was another good reason to circumvent the veils on tiptoe, rather than attack them outright.

Resolutely, he arranged the bedding on the floor. It wasn't much, just some blankets for cushioning and a small pillow. It was better than sleeping on the cold, hard stone ground or in the equally uncomfortable chair, though. He picked up the flask, unstoppered it, and then just stared at it, working up his nerve.

"It's not only for Fai," he told himself. "It's for Seresu, and the whole world."

With that, he upended the flask and swallowed all its contents.

It was a mark of how desperate he had become that he had just willingly drugged himself, he thought with resignation and no little fear. He lay down on his back and waited.

A warm drowsiness stole over him, not unlike the last time he'd taken a sleeping draught. He gazed upwards at the elaborately carved stone ceiling, wondering how long it would take to fall asleep. The apothecaries had assured him the potion would work quickly, and only last a few hours. They had actually approved of his request for it. Everyone, it seemed, knew of his restless nights.

The drowsiness faded, leaving him feeling as wide awake as ever. So, he thought, the potion had proven too weak. He should have gotten something stronger. He felt a curious and aggravating mixture of relief and frustration. With a sigh, he stood up and considered leaving this task for another night.

A soft breeze fluttered his hair and caressed his skin. The torches flickered. He frowned. He'd never noticed any drafts in this room before. And where would one come from? This place was buried deep in the mountain. He supposed there must be some ventilation; after all, fresh air had to come from somewhere.

The sound of a single drop of water plinking onto a liquid surface echoed in the chamber, and Ashura froze in place. He knew there was no possible way for there to be dripping water down here. Another breeze ruffled his hair.

Recognition struck him. The last time he'd experienced these sensations, he'd been in the castle shrine, and had cast a spell for knowledge that had inadvertently put him to sleep.

Was he already dreaming?

The wind picked up, freezing cold, and behind him he heard a sharp scream of pain. He spun around, eyes searching. The chamber's unchanged interior seemed to mock him. A gust of cold air carried harsh, biting sleet with it, and he heard another scream behind him.

He turned again, and again saw nothing but stone walls and mystical torches flickering in the impossible wind. He must be asleep. He must be dreaming. His dreams always felt like this, so solid and real, even more solid and real than waking reality.

Wind gusted; a burst of sharp ice crystals drove against his flesh like tiny needles. His hair whipped about his face. The nine walls receded, pulling farther and farther away from him, disappearing into a stormy sky and snowy landscape. He felt power thrum through him, burning its way along his veins, glowing hotter than the sun, consuming him. It felt so good. Magic always felt good. The more, the better. It had always been like that for him. Always.

He had always pushed the boundaries of his power. All his life, he had striven beyond his limits, questing for new magic, more magic. And now, suddenly, there were no boundaries.

He spread his arms wide and let the fiery sensations deluge him and annihilate all his restraints. He felt stronger, more powerful than he'd ever felt in his life. The overwhelming fervor of life force flooded him, and he surrendered himself to it, allowing it to fill all his empty spaces, to make him whole and complete as he had never been before.

Simple houses and shops appeared around him. People ran in all directions, screaming, bleeding, crying. Some begged for mercy, others simply fled in hysteria. A map of the area lit up in his mind's eye, the position of each victim marked by a heady, incandescent core of life essence: each man, each woman, each child—even the new life growing within every expectant mother's womb. He lifted a barrier around the village so none could escape, and laughed at the panic he created.

A woman clutching an infant to her chest slid in the icy, pinkish muck and fell before him. She pushed herself to her knees and extended an arm, pleading, tears leaving wet tracks on her cheeks. The baby wailed, its cries mingling with the woman's frantic entreaties and the shouts of terror filling the air.

He smiled down at her gently, lifting her chin with a bloodstained hand. She gulped and shook, her eyes wide and starting. Ashura smiled again, and tore out her throat. Before her body finished its graceless descent into the gory snow, her baby was also dead.

He whirled, catching a man in the belly, ripping through clothes and skin and muscle to the slippery entrails within.

Power surged, incomprehensible potency searing his veins. His heart pounded, pounded, pounded, a relentless, ever increasing cadence that drove the blood in his arteries and in the streets to rise and swell, forward and forever. His heart pounded with such force he thought it would burst with joy, and with it his blood sang.

He slashed with claws of dark sorcery, reveling in the rending of flesh, in the screams of pain and terror. Hot liquid spattered him, bathing him in its glorious essence. Power and strength surged through him, ecstatic, addicting. With each tearing strike, his magic grew, every cell in his body tingling with burning vitality. He had never felt so alive, so free. He could do anything. Anything.

He wanted more. He needed more. More. Moremoremoremoremoremoremore—

He felt cold.

Cold and numb, and so very tired that he couldn't even lift his eyelids. A frigid wind swept over him, and tiny ice crystals stung his exposed face and hands. Was he outdoors? He should go inside. Only a fool would stand witlessly in the elements when one of Seresu's ice storms threatened.

A peculiar lassitude held him motionless, captive to the shroud of numbness over his thoughts. What was wrong with him? He fought to move, to reason, and yet he feared it, too.

He inhaled the freezing air. Instead of the clean scent of snow, a metallic tang assaulted his nostrils. He opened his eyes—

—And barely held back a scream of horror.

He stood in the center of some nameless village. Bodies lay strewn around him, ripped to pieces. Crimson stained the snow, defiling its white purity, the warm blood melting ice and mingling with the liquid flows to create vile, pink pools.

He turned in a circle, scanning with his eyes, reaching out with mystical senses. Death hung over everything. In the entire village, not one person still breathed.

His eyes turned downward, to the corpses at his feet. His gaze fell on his hands, and his heartbeat faltered.

His hands were covered with blood.

Shredded skin and wet strings of tissue clung to his nails. His robes and greatcoat were splattered with gore and gelatinous gobbets of flesh.

No, his mind denied. It can't be. It can't.

"It's not! It's not!" Ashura screamed to the universe, tears streaming from his eyes.

And it wasn't. The dream released him, and he stood apart from the scene, shaking, remembering how the power and the madness had consumed him, how he had willingly surrendered to it, how he had welcomed it. How it was a part of him. How it had made him complete.

The truth bore down on him. He staggered under its immensity, its utter indifference to mortal concerns and conscience. The madness and the craving for power...it was the way he had been made. He had been born to kill. He had been born a monster. He was an abomination.

Slowly, he backed away, out of the dream, out into the dream space. And when he escaped the dream's boundaries, when he stood outside it, he saw the river of blood surging onward, always onward, always on the same course. The course of madness; the course to utter destruction, and utter failure.

He fell to his hands and knees, sobbing.


	39. Chapter 39

After a while, Ashura pushed away his despair and forced himself to stand up. He didn't know how long he had huddled crying outside that awful dream. It didn't matter; he was in the dream space now, and outside the horror.

It had been months since that particular dream had affected him so profoundly, but he'd never before experienced the moments leading into it, when the madness swept over him and he lost himself. Worse, he had welcomed the madness and surrendered to it willingly, even joyfully. That alone was cause to hate himself. He'd always believed he would be stronger when his time came, that he would fight against the inevitable. But instead, it seemed he wouldn't fight at all.

Maybe when the insanity first came upon him, he would fight, he thought hopefully. Maybe he would try to resist its allure when the time came for him to begin killing for madness and magical power. That village would not be his first massacre; that particular bloodbath would occur sometime later. He had yet to see how he would inevitably lose himself, or how and when his descent into psychosis would even begin.

He feared he was deluding himself by thinking he would ever fight it.

"You are a fool," he told himself ruthlessly. That dream hadn't shown him anything he didn't already know. He had already learned that his true, inborn nature was that of a monster, held in check by ancient seals and spells. But before, he had never truly felt it, or honestly believed it deep in his heart and soul. That was the difference. That dream had stripped away the last of his comforting self-delusions.

Naked truth was often painful. He wouldn't let it defeat him.

He really needed to find an earlier trigger point in that dream, a place where he could escape it sooner. He was so tired of experiencing the insanity and burning rapture of murder over and over again. But there didn't appear to be any way to make himself aware that it was just a dream while he was caught up in bloodlust and madness.

But some day, he knew, it wouldn't be a dream. It would be real.

Finally, he had regained enough control over himself to turn away from his loathsome dream. Though he defiantly chose to ignore it, his nightmare remained, a glowing bubble of prophecy with horror frozen inside for all eternity, permanently anchored to the river of blood.

Ashura instead looked out over the dream space and repressed his usual, instinctive shudder at both its immensity and its contradictory implications, so far beyond the scope of a normal, mortal mind. Time was fluid in this place, and also irrelevant; logical causation a mere accident. Here one could witness effect before cause, and become hopelessly lost in the endless tangles of what-if and maybe-not.

All dreamers perceived the realm of dreams differently. Ashura's perception was always of infinite, black space filled with glowing spheres and pathways. Around him drifted delicate, shining bubbles that held dreams, an infinity of shimmering paths forming links between them. Uncountable numbers of dreams were connected to others. Uncountable numbers were dead ends.

He despised the realm of dreams only slightly less than his own dreams for its very ambiguity. Here dwelt all dreams, all futures, and an intrepid dreamer could find paths through them to see, and perhaps even alter, destiny. But the only path he ever saw for his world led to a dead end. He didn't care about any of the infinite dreams of the other worlds, the surviving worlds. They and their fates didn't matter to him. He concentrated solely on his own, seeking a way for it to live.

As always, all routes into his nightmare had been hidden from him. It was as though there was no past, as though that moment in time was the beginning of all things to him. And from it flowed a river of blood that led to only one end.

He focused, and detected the shrouds of darkness that made all his other dream paths invisible. One of those disguising veils caught his attention; it was strangely weaker, and slightly frayed. That, he assumed, was what had allowed him to see earlier into this particular dream. It seemed the sleeping drug had allowed him greater access at least into this horrific event in his future. Not that it had shown him an experience he appreciated, but perhaps there would also be more access into other, alternate possibilities.

When he looked beneath the river of blood, he could discern the thin, half-hidden trail exiting out of the dream and leading into future annihilation. It was the only path he had ever seen exiting from this dream, and its very elusiveness made him wonder if he was even meant to see it at all. It could be by accident or by design: perhaps the spells covering it were imperfect, or maybe those spells were deliberately faulty, an attempt to mislead him into believing the sorcerer had tried to hide it from him but failed. In the latter case, the sorcerer would want Ashura to follow that path to destruction. Ashura had no way of knowing which interpretation was the truth. He only knew it was the lone path allowed to him. If there was a way to prevent the final events at the end of the world, it remained hidden from him.

That was why he had taken the sleeping potion, to gain access to different dreams. But drugs came with a price: they affected his control. Not that he had all that much control over his dreams anyway, but the loss of what little he could exert was potentially disastrous. He again remembered how he had lost control over his dreams the last time he had used a sleeping drug, and feared a repeat of that experience. That time, he had retreated from the dreamscape into a safe dream construction of his own, but every exit from that safe area had only led to inescapable horrors. He thought about that. Perhaps if he remained in the dream space, he could control his movements through dreams better.

He examined the frayed veil more closely. Concerned that its thinness and new tears might be a trick of the sorcerer's, rather than the hoped-for result of the sleeping drug, Ashura was careful not to touch or disturb it in any way. Nothing happened. He readied a defensive spell anyway, just in case his mere proximity sprang an unpleasant trap. He remembered with vivid clarity how once before the veils had flung him away helplessly, far across infinite dreams. That experience hadn't been all bad, though. That was how he'd found Valeria, and first seen Fai...

Since the veil was now imperfect, he hoped it could be more easily circumvented. If he could trace backwards along the path it concealed, he might at least find the beginning of his madness, and even the moments before. From there, he could attempt to view other paths. It was worth a try.

A butterfly fluttered out of one of the holes in the veil. Ashura felt a tiny stir of air when the insect winged past his ear.

Curious, he watched the butterfly as it flitted erratically over the river of blood. This was certainly new. He had encountered a great many strange things in the dream space, but never butterflies.

It was a pretty little thing. The delicate creature's body was black with white and blue accents. Its shimmering wings were white with large blue spots and striking black veins. Ashura narrowed his eyes in consideration. Those were the colors of the royal house. Was this some kind of sign? Or was it a trap set by that miserable, maggot-minded whoreson of a sorcerer?

Ashura swore under his breath. This was all his own dream, and yet he couldn't trust anything about it. Not even an innocuous little insect. Especially not an innocuous little insect. It could be a symbol or guide, something his dreaming mind had conjured to show him the way into alternate dreams. That thought made him swear again. He had never been good at interpreting arcane dream symbolism. The meaning almost never became clear to him until after the events it warned of came to pass, at which point it was obvious but also useless.

Alternatively, the butterfly could also be a disaster waiting to happen. Maybe it would explode in his face, sending him careening across dreams like the first time he had attempted to pierce the sorcerer's enchanted veils. Or maybe it was just an irrelevant, drug-induced phantasm.

The butterfly flittered back to him and circled him several times. He stayed perfectly still, observing it warily. It didn't seem dangerous, but then, many deadly things didn't.

The insect flew away from him, disappearing back into the frayed veil.

Ashura waited, ready to put up a defensive shield at the first intimation of threat. Nothing happened. He peered closer to the veil, and the butterfly popped out again. He pulled back, but it flapped right up into his face. He flinched when it alighted on the tip of his nose. His eyes crossed as he looked at the silly thing, and he blew a puff of breath upwards. The butterfly took flight, fluttering near his eyes.

All right, so maybe it wouldn't explode.

"You are a ridiculous creature," he told the butterfly. "Why are you here?"

Not that he expected an answer, but, well, this was a dream. Maybe this butterfly could talk.

It didn't. It just continued to flutter about his head in a most annoying fashion.

The butterfly appeared to be a pointless distraction. However, because irrelevancies rarely appeared in Ashura's prophetic dreams, he resolved to keep an eye on its meanderings. Eventually, he would learn its purpose. He just needed to be patient.

He returned his attention to the tattered veil. He leaned forward to examine it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the butterfly settle on his right shoulder. He gave the insect an exasperated look, then focused again on the veil.

Almost immediately, he felt an incredibly heavy weight where the butterfly had landed. He staggered under the burden, and it grew even heavier, making it impossible for him to stand upright. With a shout of dismay, he lost his balance and stumbled forward into the ragged holes in the dark shroud, his body tearing through the barrier as easily as if it were composed of aged, insubstantial cobwebs.

Ashura fell on his hands and knees with a hard jolt. He cursed roundly at the jarring pain in his palms and kneecaps. The surface beneath him was hard as stone. In fact, it looked exactly like dull gray stone.

Dreams that felt more real than reality could be quite unpleasant. To put it mildly.

Painfully, he got up and took a look around.

He stood in a long, narrow tunnel that was hewn out of solid rock. The ceiling loomed only a few inches above his head, and the sides of the tunnel were less than an arm-span apart. Behind him, the location where he'd fallen through was a dead end of rough stone. Before him the tunnel was lit by dim gray light and stretched into the distance. There didn't appear to be any way out; he could only go forward.

The butterfly fluttered innocently around his head. He scowled at it.

"You wretched insect. It's all your fault that I'm in here," he told it. Wretched dream, where a butterfly could suddenly weigh enough to topple him over. Who had ever heard of an overweight butterfly?

The butterfly looped through the air before him a few times, then flittered down the claustrophobic tunnel and vanished into its shadowy recesses.

"And now I suppose you want me to follow you," Ashura muttered. This didn't look good, but there was no other direction to go. He'd drugged himself in an attempt to venture beyond the dream boundaries the sorcerer had set for him, and in that aim it appeared he'd succeeded. Unfortunately, because he was drugged, he wouldn't be able to escape the realm of dreams by waking up.

He could just sit here until the sleeping potion wore off. As tempting as the idea was, it was also cowardly and unproductive. This was what he had wanted, after all. He had sought a different dream path, and it seemed he had found one. He just hadn't expected it to be a dark, forbidding passage carved through hard, brutally unforgiving rock.

Caution was warranted, but as yet the new situation didn't alarm him unduly. Surprises such as this were the reason he had prepared spells for dream defenses. His sleeping body also lay in the chamber of his ancestors, so he had direct access to the magic that imbued that place if he needed to draw extra power.

He summoned his courage and started walking down the tunnel after the butterfly. The annoying insect twice returned to him, fluttered around his head, then flew off into the distance again. Ashura still wasn't sure exactly what the butterfly's true purpose was in this dream. It had forced him into this tunnel, and now it seemed to be providing guidance and, in its own irritating way, encouragement. He didn't actually trust it, but unless he wanted to waste the opportunity to explore a different dream path, he had to follow it. There was no other direction available.

It was a very long tunnel. Ashura lost track of how long and how far he walked. Not that it mattered; time and distance had little meaning in dreams. In many places the footing was irregular and uneven, causing him to wobble unsteadily whenever he took a misstep. The gloomy light never changed, and there were no side rooms or exits. There was only the infinite distance stretching out before him.

Then he felt something crunch beneath his sole, and his foot slipped a little. He stopped and looked down, then took a step back in revulsion.

The ground was littered with dead and dying butterflies. Like his aggravating guide, they were the colors of the royal house: blue and white and black. Most had been dismembered, with their wings pulled off and scattered. The ones still living waved their antennae and legs in the air pathetically.

Ashura looked ahead. As far as he could see, the way before him was strewn with the dead and crippled insects. He grimaced, knowing that if he were to progress further, he would have to walk on that grisly path. Resolutely, he started forward again, wincing at the crunching he felt and heard with every step. His feet slid on the silken wings and the wet guts of crushed butterflies.

This dream just got worse and worse. He again considered stopping or even backtracking and then waiting until the sleeping potion wore off. But it was just a dream. The dead and dying butterflies weren't real. To stop now, when he had come so far, would be pure cowardice. He had to keep going. He had to see where this new path led.

He told himself that several times.

He kept walking, doing his best to ignore the way the unreal-but-too-real butterflies crackled, popped, and squished beneath his feet.

Ahead, he saw a spot of bright, white light. An exit from the long, gray passage? It appeared so. Perhaps it even led to a new dream, a new future. Maybe not a better future, but any differences there would provide hope that he could change the future that trapped him now. He quickened his pace, even as the carpet of tortured butterflies grew thicker and heavier.

He reached the end of the tunnel. The white light streamed from the exit. It blinded him. He couldn't see what lay beyond, only the incandescent brilliance. Praying for anything but a future of blood, he stepped past the threshold and into the light.


	40. Chapter 40

**I don't usually add extra warnings, but this chapter contains some pretty violent and disturbing imagery. It might be upsetting to more sensitive readers. However, it's all just part of Ashura's dream world and does not really happen. No imaginary people were harmed during the creation of this scene.**

* * *

Ashura found himself in a place that was too horribly familiar. A cavernous, shadowy chamber, with a large, round mirror standing in a central place of prominence. Its surface was blank and black, showing nothing, not even any reflections of the room. An enormous, ornate throne stood before the mirror—and seated upon that throne, an older man, with graying hair, wolf-like features, elaborate robes, and a circle of glass over one eye. A man with magic power that gods would fear, the author of Ashura and Fai's troubles: the sadistic, dark sorcerer.

Ashura froze in a moment of pure panic. He wanted to hyperventilate, but instead he seemed to have stopped breathing entirely. He wanted to flee, but couldn't move. He wanted to attack, but had no power nor even will. Time seemed to stop, and yet run on into eternity. Then the spell broke when the sorcerer turned his head and caught Ashura's wide-eyed gaze.

"Well, if it isn't the Seer King, come to visit me once more," the sorcerer said with a derisive sneer. "You've proven to be quite troublesome, haven't you? Far more than I expected."

Ashura didn't bother answering. He whirled back the way he had come, but instead of an exit there stood a blank wall barring his way. He pressed his hands against it frantically, but the wall was as solid as rock. Desperately, he tried to reach back to his sleeping body in the waking world, tried to tap the power that he had stored in the chamber of his ancestors, but there was nothing, nothing at all.

"Don't bother," the sorcerer said smugly. "This is my dream, not yours. I control everything here, even you. You can't leave unless I allow it."

Inwardly, Ashura sagged. He knew that. He knew his power would never match this sorcerer's. While trapped in this place he could touch nothing in the real world, neither his sleeping body nor the extra magic in his ancestors' chamber. There truly was no escape. He was completely cut off and under the sorcerer's thumb.

He turned slowly to face his enemy, wondering how he had gone so wrong. This encounter had not been on the agenda; he had never planned to seek out the sorcerer again. In fact, he would have gone to the greatest lengths possible to avoid another such meeting. Yet here he was.

"What, have you nothing to say to me?" the sorcerer asked. "I thought you would have a great deal to say to me."

Ashura certainly did, none of it polite, but a strong sense of self-preservation held him back. Instead, he asked, "Who are you?"

The sorcerer's lips curled. "You're a magician. You should know better than to ask that question."

Ashura did know better. A true name could be used as a weapon against the magician who bore it. That was why most kept their inner soul-names secret, and identified themselves only by their exoteric names. However, this man wasn't even willing to provide that much. "Why did you bring me here?"

"Me, bring you here? Is that what you think?" The sorcerer tilted his head, supporting it against one fist while he lounged insolently on his throne. "Now, why would I do that? Why would you think such a thing?"

The treacherous butterfly that had led Ashura to his doom flitted past his head. He glared at it, even though it was himself that he cursed. Of course the sorcerer had created his bait by dressing an innocent-looking creature in the colors of the royal house; Ashura would never have followed it had it not seemed both innocuous and also a manifestation of his own dream.

With blithe unconcern, the butterfly fluttered over to the throne. The sorcerer extended a finger, and the butterfly alighted upon it. It rested there, fanning its wings. The sorcerer smirked unpleasantly at it, as though he were amused by some private joke. What meaning, Ashura wondered, did butterflies hold for this man, that he should employ one as a lure and yet regard it with such scorn?

Then his thoughts scattered as the sorcerer grasped the creature and, with deliberate and excruciating care, pulled its wings off.

"Why, indeed, would I think such a thing?" Ashura said with heavy sarcasm, marveling at his own stupidity. He should have heeded his instincts back in the tunnel, when he had seen the dismembered butterflies. They had been a warning; he should not have progressed forward. In hindsight, the symbolism was obvious. As usual, he understood the true meaning too late.

With contemptuous disregard, the sorcerer dropped the dying butterfly on the floor. "You are a fool," he said disdainfully. "There is no creature so pathetic as a dreamseer who will not accept his own visions of the future."

Dreamseer? Was that what it was called? At least now he had a label to attach to his cursed affliction. Ashura said pointedly, "Perhaps if I had access to all my visions, I would not be such a pathetic creature."

The sorcerer didn't deny his tampering. Instead, he said, "Is that what you want? You would spurn my gift?"

"Gift? You call crippling my visions a gift?" The sheer outrageousness of the claim made Ashura stare. The sorcerer must think him a complete idiot. Ashura carefully moved forward, coming around to face his adversary. He kept his eyes off the twitching, mutilated butterfly that crawled in agony next to the throne.

"Very much so. It is a gift without price." The sorcerer smiled slyly and steepled his fingers. "You wouldn't like the alternative, not at all."

"And what alternative would that be?"

The sorcerer answered with a question of his own: "Have you never considered the consequences were you to die too soon, or in the wrong manner?"

Ashura knew all too well the consequences. Despite that, he had never accounted that problem a serious concern. The Witch of Dimensions had demanded he live for another seventeen years as payment to her. She could not break her own contract without severe repercussions, any more than Ashura could. Therefore, she must know that he would not die too soon. At least, he assumed as much.

What he didn't understand was why the sorcerer was baiting him like this. The sorcerer was the sole reason that any consequences at all would befall Seresu should Ashura die "in the wrong manner." In plain words, in any way other than by Fai's hand. Did he believe that Ashura didn't know the truth of that?

Ashura wanted to ask outright, but that was too dangerous. He was utterly at the sorcerer's mercy. For the time being, he could only play along. That shouldn't be too difficult, though. The monster clearly held him in contempt. All Ashura need do was keep a rein on his temper and pretend to be as stupid and unknowing as this churl believed. Feigned ignorance was the only advantage he possessed here in the sorcerer's dream.

"Why should it matter to you when or how I die?" he asked, and it took all the skill at guile that his many years living in a royal court had taught him to hide his own feelings of contempt.

The sorcerer taunted, "You have a schedule to meet, and a little bird needs to be pushed from his nice, comfortable nest at just the right time."

Little bird? "You mean Fai?" Ashura asked, startled.

"Is that what that child is calling himself now?"

Ashura felt a flash of anger, and swiftly repressed it. "His birth name doesn't matter."

"Heh. No, I suppose not. You're quite attached to him, aren't you?" The sorcerer smiled, and it was a foul thing to behold. "He is most fortunate that you shield him, however foolish that action is on your part. I foresaw that you would take him, you know, just as I have foreseen the consequences of your foolhardiness."

Yes, Ashura believed the sorcerer had foreseen it. That much was true. Only a magician capable of foreseeing the future could know the ways to attack another's prophetic dreams, or even have reason to do so. Like the Witch of Dimensions, the sorcerer had taken advantage of the opportunity presented by Ashura's desperate attempt to find a way to die.

But Ashura knew that what the sorcerer hadn't foreseen, he had manipulated into being. Ashura wondered how much the Witch had also manipulated into being. That comment about having a schedule to meet sent Ashura's thoughts down some thoroughly unpleasant pathways.

The Witch of Dimensions had a schedule for him, too...

He could only hope that she was at least a little less callous and bloodthirsty than this sorcerer, even though he already believed she was no less ruthless. Although she had seemed regretful at the time, by fulfilling his desire to die by giving him Fai, she had helped to fulfill the larger destiny that Ashura had sought to avoid.

The sorcerer continued, "You should be grateful that I shield you from him."

"From Fai?" As though anything that had happened to Fai in his short life had been his fault. Ashura barely stopped himself from accusing the sorcerer of setting Fai's curses and deliberately engineering the entire mess. But he couldn't resist a jab of his own. "How magnanimous of you, especially considering that you made it possible for me to rescue Fai at all."

"Me?" The sorcerer was the picture of innocence.

Fai must be incredibly important to the sorcerer, Ashura thought, for him to be going to so much trouble. Why else the elaborate schemes and curses, designed to come to fruition many years in the future? And why else this odd conversation? It was clearly directed toward some goal, and Ashura already feared where it might lead. "You destroyed that prison pit in Valeria to make it possible for me to reach Fai."

In fact, Ashura thought no such thing. He had always believed the Witch of Dimensions had destroyed the pit so he could enter. He was curious how the sorcerer would respond to the accusation. What the sorcerer had said so far implied that, while he knew about Ashura's actions in Valeria, he wasn't necessarily aware of the Witch's role in Fai's rescue or the long years Ashura had pledged to her. Ashura intended to keep it that way. He might not like her and didn't care one whit about protecting her or her plans, but he wanted every advantage he could get. In this game of words he played with the sorcerer, knowledge was both the ultimate power and the ultimate goal.

"You think I destroyed that child's place of imprisonment?" The sorcerer snorted. "You did that yourself."

That was a new one. It was completely disingenuous of the sorcerer to make such an absurd declaration. "That pit nullified ordinary magic. There was no possible way I could break it."

The sorcerer indulged in another of his sly, knowing smiles. "Not from the inside, no. It was designed to contain prisoners and corpses within, but not to prevent entry into its environs. You came from the outside, and from another world. The force of your arrival and the magic of your physical materialization disrupted its barriers and shattered both the esoteric and the physical structures that maintained it. It was never intended to withstand the kind of magic that rips through the boundaries between worlds."

Ashura gaped blankly at him, feeling his heart stutter. Was it possible? Could he have gone at any time to save Fai and his brother? Could he have had both children as his own, if only he hadn't been so afraid of their doom of misfortune that he had waited until it was too late?

No. Even if it were true, the sorcerer's statement was nothing more than a trap, a cruel jab to distract him and throw him off balance. Ashura already knew the sorcerer was an accomplished liar who would say anything necessary to manipulate his chosen victim. Look at the impossible promises he had made to Fai, on which he planned to renege. Instead of keeping his pledge to resurrect Fai's brother, he instead intended that Fai be destroyed by his second curse.

Ashura couldn't trust anything this man said to him, on any subject. Any truths would be tangled in a web of deceit and misdirection. Truth could only be obtained by sieving and interpreting the sorcerer's statements, assuming there was any truth at all to be gleaned from so much chaff.

The sorcerer leaned back in his chair and regarded Ashura over steepled fingers. "Since you took such a rash action, someone had to protect you from yourself."

Oh, they were back to that again, were they? The absurd claim of altruistic benevolence for some stranger glimpsed in a prophetic dream? "Why do you care at all about me and mine?"

"I already told you," was the maddening response.

The circular reasoning was ridiculous. The whoreson seemed to have quite a fondness for games, especially those he played with other people's minds and lives. Ashura knew he'd never get anywhere without plain speech, but he didn't dare make any antagonistic moves. This sorcerer could destroy him with less than an afterthought.

Wait... The sorcerer apparently needed him as much as Fai. That earlier statement about meeting a schedule... Was the sorcerer even aware he had made a telling slip? Perhaps, perhaps not. He didn't appear to care either way; he seemed quite smug and sure of himself, to the point of overconfidence.

Fai's curses clearly served a specific purpose for this sorcerer. They hadn't been set out of malice, pure sadism, or a simple desire to destroy Fai at some predetermined point in the future. In truth, that idea had never made much sense to Ashura, but he had been unable to discern another reason why anyone would want to harm a wounded, inoffensive child in such a dreadful way. All he could think of was that the sorcerer wanted to eliminate a potential rival. It was very true that Fai would one day have the power to be a significant rival.

But now, now Ashura knew the sorcerer had some kind of ultimate goal, to be accomplished through an elaborate, long term plan. A plan that required Ashura to go mad, kill all his people, in the process driving Fai away...to somewhere, probably to kill some other powerful magician the sorcerer wanted eliminated through that miserable first curse. Ultimately, the plan would conclude with the sorcerer's second curse disposing of Fai and Ashura's world, as Ashura had already foreseen for himself. They were all nothing more than hapless tools to this monster, moved about like game pieces on a halatafl board.

More than ever, Ashura wanted to remove Fai's curses. And now he also wanted to shove a stick into the spokes of the sorcerer's mysterious plans. It was partly for revenge, for Fai's sake as well as his own; partly to save his country; and partly just good, old-fashioned spite.

Still, even if Ashura succeeded in fouling the plot by stripping Fai's curses, there might be no stopping the sorcerer from accomplishing his unknown goals in some other manner. Clever schemers always had backup plans, as Ashura knew well from his lifetime of political experience. This sorcerer probably had any number of them. That was a pity, but ultimately Ashura's primary concerns were for his son and his kingdom. Everything and everyone else would just have to look out for themselves.

Although Ashura had long practice at keeping his expression blank and unrevealing, the sorcerer must have noticed something. He said, "I see you are not convinced of my good intentions."

Ashura didn't even bother to hide his disbelief at that ridiculous statement. "About what?" he blurted before he thought through his words.

"Your early death, of course. My gift to you prevents it," the sorcerer said with a particularly annoying, condescending smile. "There are many ways it could come about, you know. For instance, a hostile country borders your own, does it not? One whose king hates you as no other."

Arimaspea. Yes, Ashura was highly aware of the problem, but given the many years pledged in his contract with the Witch of Dimensions, that particular threat held little meaning to him.

The sorcerer continued, "I see you are the type who only believes what he observes for himself. Very well. With your own prophetic power, you shall see what would soon come to pass without my benevolence."

He lifted a hand and made a casual gesture.

The world was spinning. Ashura's head was spinning. He felt as though he had been beaten and abused, inside and out. His stomach churned with nausea. He lay helplessly on the ground, unable to even make himself try to stand up, he was so dizzy and hurt so much. Something around his aching wrists felt heavy, so heavy, and clinked slightly when he tried to move his arms.

Darkness surrounded him. And then he noticed his eyes were closed. He opened them, and saw that he was in hell.

He was lying curled up in a military pavilion tent, with several throw rugs covering the dirt ground. Some simple camp furnishings were scattered about: a few stools, a chest that apparently doubled as a table. They looked Arimaspi. But why—? He pushed himself to his knees and into a pained huddle, and looked down at himself. The heaviness around his wrists was revealed to be iron manacles that were linked together by a length of thick chain. His clothing was torn and soiled; cuts and bruises covered his exposed skin. He must have lost a battle and been taken prisoner, then.

His mind was foggy; his head hurt; his vision blurred, cleared, and blurred again. His emotions were strangely blunted, and he experienced an odd feeling of separation from himself. The dizziness and nausea continued unabated.

Drugged, he thought muzzily. Something his captors hoped would keep him from focusing, from connecting to and using his magic. Of course. The Arimaspi knew well of his abilities; they called him Wizard King, Winter King, Witch King, and a host of other accurate, if uncomplimentary, epithets. They would be prepared to hold him, should they ever get their hands on him. Which they apparently had done.

He needed to concentrate, to pierce through the fog in his head and manifest a simple detoxification spell to moderate the drug's effects. He always kept one ready, but the enchantment slipped beyond his reach. Odd, that... He tried again, and again the spell eluded him. It was as though it had been erased from his mind, or that he'd never even learned it. But that made no sense.

He heard a muffled sob, and then a thin, frightened voice said, "King Ashura?"

No. Oh, no. Nonononono. What was Fai doing here? Ashura forced his head up and around, seeking the source of that beloved but broken voice. There. To his left he saw Fai, also in chains, sitting hunched upon a throw rug near a camp cot. The weeping child had his arms wrapped about himself, and rocked forward and back with an uneven rhythm. Tears ran down his dirt-smeared face as he stared hopelessly at Ashura. Fai didn't look like he had been harmed physically, at least not yet, but appearances were often deceptive. And even if he were unhurt, what had he witnessed? Ashura knew from his own physical condition that their captors had been neither gentle nor honorable.

A pair of booted feet stomped into his line of sight. Ashura looked up, and beheld an Arimaspi warrior glaring down at him. His face was hard and bore an old, thin scar on his left cheek. A high-ranking warlord, Ashura determined from the quality of the man's clothing, chain mail, and accoutrements. Probably the leader. The warlord held a bared sword in one hand in blatant, naked threat.

The warlord's eyes were colder than ice. "King Skudra wants your head," he said in harsh, grating tones.

The king of Arimaspea had, long ago, loudly and arrogantly proclaimed himself the mortal enemy of any king of Seresu. He still did so whenever anyone would listen. Ashura felt another wave of drug-induced dizziness and nausea, and wondered hazily if he and Fai would soon be meeting Skudra, face to face and under the most unfortunate of circumstances.

Ashura uttered a pained gasp as a fistful of his hair was grabbed and used to haul him upright on his knees. The warlord tightened his grip, dragging Ashura up even more. Ashura realized with horror that his vulnerable neck was pulled taut and exposed, and then the warlord swung his sword in a long, sweeping arc.

There was an impact, a burst of searing agony, and utter, paralyzing shock. The world bounced crazily, swinging back and forth, back and forth. Ashura couldn't blink or close his eyes; he was forced to watch the seesawing vista. A fountain of blood sprayed, the droplets glistening as they flew through the air and splattered on the rugs and the dirt.

The world swayed, twirled around him, and Ashura got a glimpse of his own body, headless but still kneeling, the raw flesh and bone of his neck exposed, the severed veins and arteries spurting blood. He felt his cheek bump into his own shoulder, and the terrible sight spun away.

The room circled around, and he again saw his body. It slumped and fell, to lie in a twitching, graceless heap upon the ground. Blood drained from his headless neck, pooling in the dirt and soaking into the nearest throw rug.

This was insane. A severed head couldn't survive this long, could it? All the blood should have already gushed out from it. Why was he still seeing anything? Why was he still feeling anything? The stump of neck left to him felt like fire. How long would the agony continue? Why wouldn't he just die? Why? Why?

He could still hear, too. Fai was screaming, screaming, screaming. The swinging lessened. Ashura's view of the tent turned as the warlord, still holding his head by the hair, pivoted, and the swaying increased.

"Shut up!" the warlord ordered, but Fai continued to scream.

Ashura finally saw Fai, his son's chained form on hands and knees. Terrified, Fai stared at Ashura—or rather, Ashura knew, at his decapitated head, dangling from the grip of the Arimaspi warlord—with horrified, starting eyes from which streams of tears poured. The child kept screaming and screaming, incoherent wails that assailed even Ashura's supposedly dead ears.

With a vile oath, the warlord struck Fai's shoulder with the butt of his sword, and the force of that blow threw Fai aside. The child collapsed on the dirt floor, weeping hysterically.

And then it happened, the inevitable, the doom of the world. Ashura had been slain by someone other than Fai, and Fai's second curse came to hideous, devastating life. Alien magic erupted from Fai's body, a bizarre scrollwork of energies: loops and whorls of power that held terrible beauty and the dark sorcerer's malign purpose. The stark patterns of power expanded, threading throughout the tent and beyond.

Ashura couldn't see it, but he knew the relentless magic was flowing, flowing, flowing throughout the whole of Seresu and the rest of the world, surging ever outwards and engulfing everything in its path. He had dreamed it twice before; he understood horribly well what was happening. All the world was being taken: Luval Castle, the mountains, and the wide expanses of snowy lands—his entire kingdom, and beyond. And when the curse had consumed everything, leaving no tiny patch of earth, no piece of sky, not even the merest crystal of ice untouched, the magic—the trap—closed.

The cage of Fai's disastrous magic collapsed in upon itself, shrinking down, crushing the whole world into oblivion. Reality cracked then shattered against the contracting sphere of sorcery. The warlord shouted in dismay. But Ashura felt nothing. The annihilation of the world meant nothing; utter nonexistence meant nothing; Fai's premature doom meant nothing. Nothing at all.

Serves that stupid thug right, was all Ashura thought as his last flicker of consciousness left him and he faded away...

With an enormous, wheezing gasp, Ashura arched his body upright on his knees and threw his head back. Blindly, he stared at the high ceiling of the sorcerer's lair. His hands clenched and stretched convulsively as he drew in a hard, huge lungful of air, his limbs and torso shuddering against their return to a living state.

He calmed slowly, taking in deep breaths, and forced himself to relax his spine from its painful rigor. Thankfully, he was again in the dark sorcerer's dream, rather than that filthy lie of a nightmare. At some point during that agonizing vision he had fallen, and now his kneecaps complained at their mistreatment. He stayed down, not trusting himself to stand. Instead, he leaned forward and supported himself with one hand on the floor, wanting to vomit but not allowing himself that much weakness. Not here, not with his true enemy so close...

His neck still throbbed with the pain of his illusory beheading. He touched it gingerly with shaky, hesitant fingers.

"Ah, you're back. Surely now you understand the truth," the sorcerer said conversationally. "I have insulated you from that future, and others even worse. My guidance is truly a gift to you. The path I have laid out for you grants you and your world many years before the end. You will see that child you cling to so tightly grow to adulthood, which would not happen otherwise."

"Foul, polluted monster," Ashura gasped, holding his hand to his throat. The sorcerer lied. Ashura knew his own visions; he knew a true dream from false. The repugnant aftertaste of the sorcerer's magic still clung to edges of the manufactured dream. Oh, that vision had been built upon a framework of reality and contained elements of truth, though not many. Taken as a whole it was a bald-faced lie. The sorcerer held him in utter contempt, to believe that brazenly false vision would befool him. "Vile, lice-ridden excrescence. Loathsome, pestiferous son of a stinking, scabby, pus-oozing sow."

"What charming compliments. I knew you had it in you somewhere, buried under all that stifling court formality." The sorcerer stood up and came to Ashura. He bent over and placed a gentle hand on Ashura's back. Ashura felt his flesh crawl where the sorcerer touched him.

The sorcerer said with false sympathy, "You bring much of your own pain upon yourself. Come now, accept my gift and quit struggling so against fate. Your world was always doomed. We have both foreseen it. There is nothing you can do about that. It is a destiny forged by your gods. Even your own holy magi, your Völur, believe what is happening is divine providence, but I have defied your gods and given you and your people many more years to enjoy life—"

"Don't touch me!" Ashura struck the sorcerer's hand away and scrambled back. Panting, he crouched on the floor and glared up at the sorcerer. "Lying whoreson."

It was all a lie, all of it. No gods had anything to do with this. The sorcerer had brought him here specifically to offer the false pity, the false gift, and the false evidence of a false vision. Ashura knew he must be getting close to finding an alternative, to finding a different future where he and Fai were free of the beast. This farce demonstrated that clearly. The sorcerer must not be very confident of his backup plans without Fai, not if he felt the need to emerge from behind his cloaks and take an active hand in the manipulations. Ashura watched his adversary with undisguised hostility. White rage grew in him, fueled by the sorcerer's games and torments, consuming him and overwhelming all common sense.

Unthinking, he hissed, "Filthy, lying, shit-eating maggot. You did this! You set it all in motion for your own purposes..."

"I don't know what you're babbling about," the sorcerer said calmly. "Your vision has unhinged you."

"Damn you, that was no vision of mine," Ashura spat out. "You monster! You foresaw that I would take Fai as my own; you knew what those curses would do to me...you want the deaths of so many innocents and you seek a child's destruction... And now you offer false kindness and favor so I will stop opposing your desires..."

The sorcerer's countenance darkened, and he loomed threateningly. Unhealthy shadows gathered around him. "Fool. You think you know the truth? You know nothing! Even if you found the way to save your country, you wouldn't take it. You would embrace death and destruction instead. In that regard you are identical to your doomed counterpart."

His counterpart? The Dying God? It didn't surprise Ashura that this sorcerer knew about his resemblance to the Dying God. Like the Witch of Dimensions, this deceitful monster seemed to know many things about him, things he was ruthlessly using to ensure a blood-drenched death for Seresu.

Ashura recalled his visions of the Dying god, the only celestial being he'd met that didn't seem to have a gory agenda for him or a desire to claim Fai's soul. The god's advice to him rose in his mind. The god had told him to sacrifice all to change the future. The Dying God had done exactly that, to give his own child a chance to live...

Wait. The sorcerer had said "the way," not "a way." Did that mean it had always been possible to save Seresu? That the sorcerer kept him from seeing the way to accomplish it? But, Ashura wondered, if so, why wouldn't he take it? Why would he choose destruction over the salvation of his country?

First he had to find this unknown way to save Seresu. Then his questions would be answered.

"You have ceased to be amusing," the sorcerer growled malevolently. "It will be a pleasure to watch you and that child fail to save one another." He advanced, his body exuding a growing physical power and a palpable aura of menace. Ashura scooted backwards until his spine pressed against the wall.

The sorcerer clamped a large, inhumanly strong hand to the top of Ashura's head and lifted, drawing him upwards, until Ashura was standing on his very toes, forced to look the sorcerer in the eye. "I told you before," the sorcerer said silkily, "this is my dream. I control every aspect of it, even you. You should have remembered that."

The viselike fingers tightened, threatening to crush Ashura's skull, and then they sank in, through the skin and bone and into the soft brain tissue. Ashura cried out at the fiery pain, the sickening, intimate invasion of his very self. The fingers pressed in further, and the whole world pulsed light and dark while Ashura fought to retain a shred of consciousness. He felt sharp claws attempt to pierce and tear his memories, and bolstered his defenses with all his willpower. He couldn't, wouldn't give in; he wouldn't lose to this madman. He had a child and a world to protect...

A tiny movement caught his eye. Beyond the sorcerer's shoulder and through lightning flashes of white-hot agony, Ashura saw the dismembered butterfly still slowly creeping by the throne. It came to one of its lost wings and stopped moving. Not even its antennae twitched.

The sorcerer leaned in close to Ashura's ear and said, "Now you will leave me, Seer King. Remember me at your ending, and despair of your choices."

With a bone-crushing pulse of magic, the dark sorcerer thrust Ashura backwards through the wall and out into the infinite realm of dreams.


	41. Chapter 41

**I don't usually add extra warnings, but this chapter, like the last, contains some pretty violent and disturbing imagery. It might be upsetting to more sensitive readers. However, it's all just part of Ashura's dream world and does not really happen. No imaginary people were harmed during the creation of this scene.**

* * *

Numb and barely conscious, Ashura plunged through the dreamscape. A whirlwind of dreams passed by him, untouchable, unreachable. He roused enough to watch the phantasms race away, but was too battered to care about what they contained. The sensations weren't new; he'd suffered the experience twice before, this freefall through dreams, spinning out of control while bombarded by disjointed visions.

Slowly, the effects of the pain the sorcerer had inflicted on him dissipated, and Ashura regained a more normal awareness. The dream worlds flashed by while he returned to himself and fought to recall what he had learned. At the end, he had felt the sorcerer attempt to damage his mind. Ashura believed he had won that last battle, that he had protected his new, precious memories. Somehow, he had stubbornly retained his most important knowledge, and he would now put it to use.

He had a purpose; this time he could take control of his fall through dreams and direct it usefully. He knew what he wanted to see, where he wanted to arrive. He now knew for certain that there was a way to preserve Seresu. In his rage, the sorcerer had revealed that truth, and Ashura was determined to locate the path to salvation. All his doubts about its existence had been erased. And, at least for the moment, he was beyond the sorcerer's restraining cloaks that kept him tethered to the river of blood.

He concentrated, focusing on his desire to save his country, to see a future where he didn't destroy Seresu, a future where all Fai's curses were undone...and felt a tiny tug at his consciousness. He grabbed it and held on tightly, trusting it to lead him to what he sought. His plunge through dreams slowed, his tumbling freefall stopped, and his awareness oriented in the dream space. He looked, and at long last beheld the fork in the road to the future.

The alternate path was thin, frail and broken, barely visible. Unlike other dream paths which shimmered with invitation, this trail emitted a pale, sickly light. It was dying. A little while longer, Ashura thought, and it would cease to exist altogether.

But now, now it still led to a dream. Ashura saw it, a tiny bubble holding the future for which he had quested so desperately. Like the path leading to it, it was shrinking and dying and would also soon cease to exist.

Before that happened Ashura would know its secrets. He would learn how to save Seresu, and why the sorcerer had told him he wouldn't take the necessary actions. Ashura moved to the dream bubble, and reached out to touch it. His fingers brushed the filmy, fading surface, pressed in as the fragile membrane flexed and ruptured. The dream opened to him and accepted him. It was a true dream, one of his own visions of the future. A vision that had been denied him by the sorcerer.

Ashura stepped inside the dream, and understood at once that it was exactly what he had hoped. It was a future where Seresu had been saved. He saw it. It really was possible.

The cost would be high, though, so very high. Something about the dream wept, promising only despair. He didn't see himself in this future, but that didn't matter; he already knew he could never have a place in any future where his country survived him. But Fai... Fai wasn't there, either.

Why not? What had happened to Fai in this future?

Ashura looked deeper, deeper, and saw... Saw illogic and non-causation starting to creep into Seresu. Saw a growing rot sink its tangled roots deeply into his world, a festering canker that couldn't be stopped, a spreading putrescence that might well collapse everything into eternal hell. The future, it seemed, was still troubled, still in doubt, though he was gone and his country survived. But even a troubled Seresu, he believed, was better than no Seresu at all. The wizards would find ways to deal with the problems and the slow corrosion. They would have time... But he still didn't see Fai.

Had Fai simply moved on to another world? Ashura knew his death would strike Fai hard and in the heart. The act required of Fai to break his second curse would devastate him. Perhaps Fai had not been able to bear staying in Seresu after what must have happened. Fai must have done it before Ashura had murdered everyone, since the country still lived. Perhaps Fai had been banished for that act of regicide, even though it had saved everything. Or...was that all? The nobles might have been even more vengeful... Whatever had happened, Ashura needed to know so he could make contingency plans to spare Fai any worse consequences from what must be done.

Ashura followed the dying path backwards, backwards in time but still in his future, seeking Fai's last moments in Seresu.

He found himself, and Fai, many, many years earlier than the dream of a troubled Seresu. They were out on a glacier, deep in the mountains. The wind ripped and howled about them. He held Fai's hand and gazed outward, out at the endless vista of snow, ice, and stormy sky, for a long, long time before finally looking down at his son.

Fai was still a young child; he didn't appear much older than he was in the present, in the real world. Maybe a year, at most. He gazed up at Ashura with trust, and asked, "What did you want to show me out here, Your Majesty?"

The violent wind carried sharp ice crystals that cut into Ashura's exposed face. Unshed tears stung his eyes. Slowly, painfully, he let go of Fai's hand.

"King Ashura?" Fai asked, looking concerned. "What's wrong?"

This was how to eliminate Fai's second curse, Ashura thought with despair. The terrible curse that had activated his own and would one day drive him to become a madman who sought power through murder. That curse, that Threat, would lead to the total devastation of Seresu, and then it would crush the whole world from existence. Fai's second curse had to be destroyed. As long as it existed in any world, anywhere in all the infinity of worlds, Seresu was doomed. No matter where Fai went, no matter what choices were made, Fai would always be drawn back to Seresu when the wheel of fate turned and the proper time came. Ashura had foreseen it.

This was the only way.

It was unbearable. Ashura wanted to weep. No wonder he had never even considered this idea before. How could he have been driven to this? He was accursed, destined to commit monstrous acts no matter the state of his sanity.

There was no other choice. His purpose, the sole reason he had even been born, was to destroy the Threat to Seresu. But he was too emotionally, desperately involved; he knew that if he didn't take action now, he never would attempt it again. His heart and soul wouldn't allow it.

Swiftly, he manifested a sword of steel-hard ice in his hand, a sword with an excruciatingly sharp blade. Without hesitation, he plunged it into Fai's chest, through his heart, the stroke so hard, the edge so honed and sharp, that the blade passed through the flesh and bone effortlessly and with a rush of blood emerged from Fai's back.

Fai was dead. Just like that.

Ashura withdrew the sword. Fai fell. Blood, so much blood, pooled around Fai like a crimson aura, stark against the rough, blue-tinted ice. Ashura stared, shaking. Tears coursed down his face, and he did nothing to check them. He tore his eyes away from the sight of his murdered son and gazed up at the sky, lost.

And with Fai's death, the dark sorcerer's two curses also died. They had been bound to the very life essence of a living being, a living being that no longer lived, and with the loss of their anchor they unraveled and dissipated into the magical ether as though they had never been.

When the last traces of Fai's second curse had evaporated into nothingness, Ashura felt something lift from him as well, a great burden that was suddenly gone. The Threat that would swallow the world no longer existed. The Divine Spear of Madness had been fulfilled. Ashura had destroyed the preordained Threat to his country as he had been born to do, and had managed it without shedding a single drop of Holy Seresu's blood in sacrifice and murder.

But even though Fai and his curses were gone, Ashura knew his own madness would still inevitably manifest. Now, however, it was unpredictable. He had no idea when insanity would take him, when he would start murdering his people. Although its purpose was fulfilled, the Divine Spear of Madness had not been stopped. Ashura knew that once activated, it could never be suppressed. The murders would one day begin even though there was no longer any reason for them. The increase in power would simply be too addictive; he knew he would murder his people ceaselessly until he stole all of Seresu's blood-magic. That was why the Sacral King was sacrificed once his purpose had been fulfilled—to stop him and to return the stolen power to Seresu. And that was why the mad king temporarily regained his sanity at intervals—to allow himself to be killed at the proper time.

He was sane for now, but it wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later he would start killing. There was still one task left to save Seresu; there was only one person present who could make the required sacrifice. By the Divine Spear's own terms, there were no longer any mystical bindings to prevent him from performing that final, necessary act. He looked at the ice-sword in his hand, dripping with Fai's blood. He marveled at how the blade didn't melt despite the heat of that beloved, vital fluid coating it.

Then he startled with alarm as the mystical atmosphere shifted. The magic around him coalesced and rumbled as strange powers came into play, and a looming, invisible force descended from the heavens. In that moment, Ashura knew the truth of the empyreal vengeance gathering to strike, the celestial justice that could not be avoided, but only accepted and embraced.

Ashura had broken faith with the Witch of Dimensions, and now the consequences of violating his pact with her began to take hold. He felt it in the shifting patterns of fate and the ominous promise of unholy retribution, in the way reality itself trembled and grew misshapen while the courses of entire universes rerouted onto new, darker pathways.

He felt the change and the doom, spreading and growing as the paths of destiny shuddered and heaved into their new alignments. The future was irrevocably altered with Fai's death, but Ashura would never know if it would be for the better for Seresu, or if his world would fall to some other, inevitable tragedy. The weeping future implied that this bitter salvation was only temporary, that it led to another, ultimate despair, but that was for his successors to deal with. The new future was out of his hands.

And he found that he didn't care. It didn't matter; nothing mattered. He would satisfy the final condition of the Divine Spear of Madness. In doing so, he would pay the price for his betrayal of the Witch, and of Fai. Seresu would live, but he would not. Even if he were somehow freed from the curse of inevitable madness, how could he bear to live with what he had done? How could he live without Fai?

He lifted the bloodied ice-sword to his throat, and with a single stroke slashed his flesh wide open. The pain was sharp and sudden and immense; his chest heaved with futile spasms; he couldn't breathe through his ruined windpipe. With dimming vision he saw his life spray outward in a crimson fountain, staining darker the already reddened ice, mingling with Fai's blood. Gasping and convulsing, he collapsed next to Fai's body and with his last ounce of strength he reached out toward his son.

Then everything stopped.

Ashura staggered back, away from the truth, the price, the despair. He stared with horror at the tableau of himself and Fai, dead on a glacier while reality itself seemed to twist and groan and condemn him, his own hand reaching forever toward Fai but never touching, their mingled blood freezing on the lonely, unforgiving ice.

This was the price of Seresu's survival.

"Oh, no," he whispered. He backed away, away, out into the infinite space of dreams. Out onto the thin, frail path that led into this dream, this nightmare, this hope and horror. Off of it, back onto the solid path that led to his own madness, and to the destruction of Seresu. Only there was his heart safe; only there was Fai safe from him. He stumbled to the river of blood and fell to his hands and knees.

He'd thought he couldn't despise himself more, but he'd been wrong.

He had been so blind. He'd known all along that Fai's two curses were bound into his life essence, yet had never before considered that destroying that essence would also destroy both curses. That, he was sure, had been the dark sorcerer's intention. That was why the sorcerer had been so certain that Ashura would murder his own country rather than do what was necessary to save it.

Ashura stared at the river of blood, at his own reflection, distorted and reddened by the hot, surging currents. He couldn't bear to experience any more horrors. He would seek no more this night. He would wait for the sleeping potion's effects to diminish, and he would wake up.

He hoped it wouldn't take too long.


	42. Chapter 42

Yūi had a bad night. Sometime long, long after midnight he had woken, panting with fear. It both was and wasn't his own, and the whirling magic he felt carried dream-horror. It was just like that time he'd felt King Ashura's nightmare, all those months ago. He hadn't felt any of the king's dreams since then. By now he knew that the magical muffling on the king's quarters were shields designed to prevent it.

So for Yūi to feel the king's nightmare now, it must be really bad. Yūi conjured a magelight so he could see. It was a technique that came easily to him; after weeks and weeks of practice, he didn't even have to draw the spell-runes one by one. They just appeared in a perfect circle when he concentrated on them.

He got up and put on his robe and slippers. Then he went out into the hallway to go to King Ashura's chambers. The night sentries met him and told him he should go back to bed, because the king wasn't even in his quarters.

Yūi protested, "But he's having a nightmare..."

One sentry said, "No, my lord, he only took a walk. He often goes walking through the castle when he is restless or has difficulty sleeping." The sentry sounded disgruntled, as though the king's nocturnal habit were a great inconvenience.

It probably was, Yūi thought. The sentries would have to alert the other night guards that the king was up and about at the unusual hour, so they wouldn't be surprised and so they could keep an eye on him when possible.

The other sentry nodded. "It's not uncommon for him. You might as well go back to bed, Lord Fai. There's no telling when he'll get back. Sometimes he stays out the entire night."

But Yūi had just felt the king's nightmare. He knew the king had been dreaming only a short while ago. Was he sleeping somewhere else in the castle? Why would he do that? Maybe he had gone to his office to work and had instead fallen back asleep. Yūi wanted to go see, but knew the sentries wouldn't let him. He considered tricking them and running past them, but King Ashura wouldn't like that. Yūi remembered the last time he had done that, during Sunbirth. The king had been mad at the guards and servants. Yūi didn't want to get them in trouble again.

With a sigh, he trudged to his rooms and went back to bed. He had begun to learn some passive sensing techniques, so as he lay against the pillows he stilled his mind like he had been taught and sorted through the impressions. Despite his efforts, he couldn't pick up anything useful. The king's magic had quieted, and all Yūi got was the usual, vague sense of presence. He could only tell that King Ashura was somewhere in the castle.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm his mind further. Further, and deeper...

The next thing he knew, natural gray light was filtering into his room through the open bedcurtains. He had fallen asleep, and now it was morning.

How annoying, but typical. He'd had trouble with falling asleep while trying to still his mind before. When he was with the king or Lord Suhail, they would prompt him to wake up and try again. King Ashura had told him it was a common problem when first learning the technique, and that he would conquer it with practice. But last night Yūi had been in bed, it had been very late, and so he'd fallen asleep.

He hoped the king was all right. Since Yūi hadn't awakened again, the king probably hadn't had any more really bad nightmares. Probably. Unless he'd gone back to his own bedchamber, where Yūi couldn't sense them. But if the king had done that, he'd at least be all right.

Yūi got out of bed and went to the bath to relieve himself. Then he looked in the mirror. He opened his mouth and checked his lower teeth. He stuck a finger on the loose tooth and wiggled it. It felt looser this morning. A lot looser, and there seemed to be a sharp edge just on the inside where it met the gum. He wiggled it again before remembering that the king had told him to leave it alone and let it fall out on its own.

Wiping his wet fingers on his nightclothes, he closed his mouth and scrutinized his reflection in the mirror. He could barely remember what he had looked like when he had first arrived in Seresu. The face that looked back at him was not that of an unhappy orphan adrift in Valeria's hostile court, nor that of a reviled, starving prisoner. Instead he saw a prince with soft, smooth skin, shining gold hair, and clear, bright eyes. He was a completely different person now.

It was time for him to really, truly, honestly be a new person.

"Fai," he said experimentally. "I am Fai-Fai-Fai."

He had taken the name, and it was past time he started really using it. Not just as a label, not just as a convenient way to hide from his guilt and shame, but as a real identity. He had accepted his new life; he finally believed, deep in his heart, that no one would hurt him, or kill him, or send him away if he did something wrong. He should accept his new identity, too. Everyone called him Fai. He should truly be Fai, and stop thinking of himself as Yūi. Yūi was a different person, a pathetic, unloved outcast. Brother-Fai was a different person, equally unloved and gone from the world, yet waiting in the sacred pool to be resurrected.

It was Fai who stood in the richly appointed bath chamber now, gazing in wonder at the prince in the mirror. Fai lived in Luval Castle with King Ashura. Fai had nice clothes, and delicious food to eat, and people liked him. Fai had a loose tooth, which meant he was growing up. Fai had a good life, and was learning all kinds of interesting and useful things. That was who he was.

He practiced saying the name for a few more minutes, then stared hard at his reflection. There was no change, of course. He was still Yūi. But he thought it would take some time to truly identify with his chosen name. It had taken him months to really accept his new circumstances. The name would be no different, but it would happen. He answered to it without even thinking about it, and now, he promised himself, he would practice believing in his new name every day. He would become Fai to himself as well as to everyone else.

He went back into his bedchamber and looked through the partially open window curtains. The sky was just lightening to gray with pre-dawn light. He thought about getting dressed and going to watch the sunrise. It promised to be pretty. The weather was calm, and there were streaks of clouds on the horizon that would light with pink and gold when the sun finally peeked over the horizon. A nice start to the day, he thought.

The door to his bedchamber flew open. Yūi whirled around, startled. In the doorway stood King Ashura.

He looked awful. His face was drawn and tired, with dark purple circles under his eyes, and his shoulders drooped forward as though he were too weary to hold them straight. His clothing was rumpled and hung askew. He looked like he might fall over at any moment.

But the worst was his eyes. They stared at Yūi, reddened and holding such terrible, tragic grief.

The king just stood there, utterly still but for the sharp chest movements of his breathing. Even that seemed labored, as if drawing breath were painful for him.

"King Ashura?" Yūi said worriedly. He wondered if he should call the healers, the king looked so bad. Was it because of those terrible nightmares? "Are you all right?"

His utterance broke whatever spell held the king immobile. King Ashura suddenly moved, swiftly approaching Yūi. He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Yūi, clutching Yūi tightly against his chest.

"King Ashura?"

King Ashura didn't respond; he just kept holding Yūi. Yūi felt the king trembling.

Yūi was really frightened now. "King Ashura, should I call a healer?" he asked. Something was very wrong.

The king flinched, and finally loosened his grip. He pulled back, keeping his hands on Yūi's shoulders, and stared at Yūi again for a long, long moment. Yūi held his breath, not knowing what to do or say.

King Ashura blinked several times. "No, I don't need a healer," he said softly. "I just..." He looked away and took some deep breaths, then dropped his hands and stood up.

He smiled, but Yūi could tell it was a fake smile. King Ashura tousled Yūi's hair. "I should let you get dressed. Go ahead and call your attendants to help you. I'll see you at breakfast." Without waiting for Yūi to reply, the king turned away and strode out of the bedchamber.

Yūi stared after the king. He heard the door to his apartments slam closed. Something was wrong. He wondered again if it was because the king had had those bad dreams last night. Maybe he had just needed a hug, like Yūi sometimes needed some comfort after his own nightmares. Maybe that was all that was wrong with the king.

Whatever afflicted the king didn't seem to diminish at all as the morning progressed. Throughout breakfast he was distracted, fingering his throat and barely responding to remarks addressed to him. He hardly touched his food, and kept giving Yūi surreptitious glances, looking conflicted and so sad, as sad as the first time Yūi had ever seen him.

Lady Kendappa did her best to carry the conversation, but finally quit trying to engage her cousin and instead spoke to Yūi about his excellent progress in magic. At that point the king pushed away from the table and left without a word.

"He's a bear this morning," Lady Kendappa commented unhappily. "I hope his mood improves, or it's going to be a dreadful day for everyone."

Despite her dire prediction, the rest of the morning passed uneventfully. Yūi had his usual lesson in reading and writing. He enjoyed it, and was pleased that he could now read simple stories for himself. It wouldn't be long, he thought, until he could tackle some of those magic books in the castle library. He should go there when he got a chance, and see if he could make sense of any of them. Surely a few of them would be written for beginners.

The king could probably tell him which ones were suitable, but Yūi didn't want to bother him today. At least not until his mood lightened. Yūi continued to wonder if maybe the king needed a healer.

Yūi's math lesson went routinely, as well. He still didn't enjoy sums, but he had more skill with them now. He had the basics memorized, and could count really high. When he concentrated hard, he could even handle the mechanics of adding and subtracting the smaller numbers without using his fingers. However, the tutor had started threatening to teach him multiplication, and that didn't sound very fun at all. Yūi distracted the tutor with a question about subtraction. It was something he understood perfectly well at this point, but the tutor was fooled and patiently explained. In that way Yūi avoided multiplication for another day.

While the tutor droned on, Yūi instead practiced making his chosen name into his real, personal identity. Fai, he thought, my name is Fai. He repeated it in his head over and over. Fai. I am Fai. Fai, Fai, Fai, Fai, Fai...

It was almost noon when the first explosion rocked Luval Castle.

Yūi rushed through the corridors, passing a lot of upset people. That had been a really big explosion. It had also been magical, and Yūi recognized the magic. It was the king's.

Another explosion shook the hallways. Yūi hurried faster. It was easy to follow. King Ashura wasn't bothering to disguise or mute his magic. Yūi thought he was outside. The magic was coming from the direction of the outdoor practice field where the castle guards drilled with weapons.

On the way there, he ran into Lady Kendappa. "Fai," she said, looking as alarmed as Yūi felt. "No, don't go that way. You don't want to go out onto the field right now."

"But it's the king! There's something wrong. Please let me see him."

She hesitated, then gave him a shrewd look and nodded. "Yes, you usually help settle him. But it's too dangerous to go out onto the practice field. Come with me."

The deafening blast of a third explosion, even more massive than the last, rent the air.

Lady Kendappa and Yūi practically flew through the castle. She led him to a balcony that overlooked the practice field. Lord Suhail and Lord Vainamoinen were already there, both leaning against the railing. Lord Suhail glanced at the new arrivals.

"I wouldn't interrupt him just now," the chief wizard said grimly.

Yūi looked out at the practice field. It was large, paved area, open to the sky but surrounded by thick stone walls and small, attached sheds. It had been cleared of snow and ice, and huge piles of the frozen detritus were heaped against the walls. A few guards huddled at the opposite entrance to the field. Lined up near a wall were six large piles of sandbags. Three charred and blackened craters smoked in the rocky ground to one side of the sandbags, and cinders swirled in the air, the ashes drifting and falling like dirty snowflakes.

King Ashura stood in the center of the field. He focused on a pile of sandbags with all-consuming intensity and lifted his hands. A tension, a building anticipation, thickened the mystical ether. A circle of brilliant, crackling spell-runes appeared before the king. They sizzled, burning with blue flames, growing hotter and brighter, brighter, hotter... The surrounding air heated uncomfortably. Suddenly the temperature plunged to arctic levels. A mass of large, fiery icicles erupted from the mystic circle. They struck the sandbags and exploded in a blinding, deafening conflagration of white-hot pyrotechnics. The shockwaves shook the practice field and the structures attached to it. Burning sand and debris sprayed in all directions.

A meteoric mass of blazing pellets flew straight at the balcony. Lord Suhail and Lady Kendappa both instinctively lifted their hands to create a shield, but the deadly projectiles hit another barrier first and sizzled into nonexistence. Blue waves rippled in concentric circles at the points of impact, then faded back to invisibility.

The air churned with billowing smoke and glittering sparkles. The pile of sandbags had been obliterated; all that remained was another charred crater gouged out of earth and fractured stone. It glowed faintly with residual heat and magic.

The guards watching from the ground-level entrance cowered back a little farther. The king ignored them, turning his attention to the next pile of sandbags.

Lord Vainamoinen clutched his chest and said weakly, "At least he's taking precautions. What brought this on?"

"I don't know. He was in a terrible mood this morning at breakfast, but he wouldn't talk about it," Lady Kendappa said. "In fact, he hardly spoke at all. It's just as well he's working out his temper this way."

"Yes," Lord Suhail agreed. "It could have been worse."

They paused nervously as another explosion shook the building's foundations.

"Something's eating at him again," Lady Kendappa said when the smoke cleared. "I hope we're not in for another repetition of...of what happened during deep winter..." She pressed her lips together and gave the adults a look Yūi didn't understand at all.

Lord Vainamoinen cleared his throat and appeared uncomfortable.

Lord Suhail said bracingly, "He repressed everything then, and it snowballed out of control. This time he's found an outlet."

"I hope so," Lord Vainamoinen said.

Lady Kendappa said, "He's also got other obligations this time." She smiled at Yūi.

Yūi said, "He had really bad dreams last night. The guards said he went walking around the castle because of them. Maybe that's the problem."

The three adults looked at him, then at each other. Yūi couldn't interpret their expressions.

"I can sometimes sense when King Ashura has bad dreams," Yūi explained to them. "His nightmares were really, really bad last night."

Lord Suhail frowned and tugged his long, gray beard. "You're not supposed to be able to do that anymore. I thought Ashura shielded his quarters to stop it from happening."

Yūi felt a touch of pique at being reminded about that. He still wanted the king to remove those shields. "His rooms are muffled from me, but I think maybe he fell asleep somewhere after he went out and had the really bad nightmares then. I felt his dreams after the guards said he went walking."

"I suppose that makes sense."

"A bad night could account for this display of temper," Lord Vainamoinen said. "Ashura's nightmares have had...unfortunate...effects on him before."

The adults silenced. The indefinable, palpable arcane tension swelled, raising the hairs on the back of Yūi's neck, and the air again heated to uncomfortable levels as the king summoned another burning circle of spell-runes. Yūi felt the telltale drop of temperature when the barrage of blue-flaming icicles launched. He clapped his hands to his ears as esoteric thunder and fire blew up three piles of sandbags simultaneously. The air became thick with choking smoke and coruscating debris, but the king's barriers kept it from causing any harm.

Yūi was alarmed and a little frightened by the show of destruction, but sheer fascination overcame those more timid emotions. He'd been taught to control his magic so he wouldn't blow things up, but maybe someday he'd also learn to create and control explosions, just like the king was doing. Yūi kind of wanted to do it now. He thought it would be fun as long as no one got hurt and nothing important got damaged. What would happen if he went down to the field right now and asked King Ashura to teach him?

Impulsively, he called out, "King Ashura!"

"Fai!" Lady Kendappa hissed.

The king turned sharply and focused his attention up at the balcony. His face was impassive, but his eyes looked haunted and terrible, as terrible as when he had come to Yūi's bedchamber. He became unnaturally still while he stared at Yūi.

The king's reaction worried Yūi. It apparently also worried Lady Kendappa, because she rested both her hands on Yūi shoulders. None of the adults with him said anything.

Then the king took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. His jaw muscles bunched and relaxed.

Yūi relaxed, too. The king looked better now, more like normal. His eyes were still shadowed, but then he often seemed a little sad. Yūi had seen King Ashura look sad many times over the past months, so often that he didn't worry about it anymore. It was just the way the king was. But Yūi knew sometimes he could make the king be happier.

Sometimes all Yūi needed to do to cheer the king up was to just ask him something about learning magic. And Yūi really wanted to learn to throw flaming, exploding icicles. He pulled away from Lady Kendappa, leaned forward against the rail, and with unrestrained enthusiasm asked, "Will I learn to do that someday? Will you teach me?"

He heard Lord Suhail inhale, and Lady Kendappa say with resignation, "Fai...," but his attention was all for the king. He didn't believe King Ashura would agree to the request, but he might, one never knew. Yūi congratulated himself when the king's expression lightened. At least King Ashura wasn't so sad now.

But then the king's eyes grew shadowed again. However, he said, "Maybe someday, Fai. Not now, though. You still need to perfect your shields and your control." He hadn't raised his voice, but the words were clear and easily heard. Yūi sensed a thread of magic, and thought the king must have projected his voice by mystical means, and wanted to learn how to do that, too.

King Ashura looked back to the smoking ruins that had once been heaps of sandbags. His gaze fell on the sole remaining pile, and he gnawed his lower lip. Then he shook his head.

He sketched a circle of glowing, blue spell-runes around him and teleported away in a swirl of sparkling magic.

The guards exclaimed in alarm at the king's disappearance and raced off, probably to find him, Yūi believed. They liked to at least have an idea of where the king was at all times, and they always hated it on the rare occasions when he vanished without warning like that.

Lord Vainamoinen gave Lord Suhail a questioning look. The chief wizard's face went blank and his eyes unfocused. Yūi felt him send out a questing probe.

"He's gone to his office," Lord Suhail said after a moment. "He doesn't want to be disturbed for at least two hours. He mentioned some documents he wants to work on, but wasn't specific."

"It's going to be an interesting afternoon," Lord Vainamoinen said with a grimace.

"Indeed," said Lord Suhail. "I do not believe the king will be able to concentrate on matters of state for much longer than that. Perhaps, when he is finished, he should instead spend the rest of the afternoon with Lord Fai. They can work on the child's defensive shields. That might help him settle."

Lord Vainamoinen nodded. Talking quietly between themselves, the two left the balcony and retreated into the castle.

Yūi looked up at Lady Kendappa. "Did I say something wrong?"

She had a thoughtful look on her face. "No, Fai. You said exactly the right thing." She patted his shoulder. "Come, child, let's go get something to eat."

That was fine with Yūi. He liked eating, and it sounded like he'd have a good magic lesson with the king later. Maybe they could talk about flaming, exploding icicles. The king hadn't said they couldn't discuss the theory. And Yūi knew he was getting pretty good about figuring out the connections between magical theory and practice.

Until then, he would work on really accepting his chosen name. Fai, he mentally said to himself. He wanted to really, truly be Fai as soon as he could. I am Fai, he thought. Fai, Fai, Fai, Fai, Fai...


	43. Chapter 43: Part V: The Southlands

**Part V: The Southlands**

It had been two months.

Two miserable months of procrastination and guilt and indecision. Two months of pretending to live normally. Two months of simple governance, of dealing with ordinary kingdom business as spring advanced and Seresu's land burst back into life for the brief but enthusiastic growing season. Two months of the usual wrestling matches with the council over policy, of bickering with Kendappa, and of indulging Fai as though each day with him were the last—which might very well be the case.

And two months without prophetic dreams.

Ashura sat in his office and pondered that last fact. Just two months ago, he would have been ecstatic for the break from night terrors. Now, he was only horrified.

He had been keeping a count of the days, or rather, the nights. Every morning he added to the tally. Two months now. Two months since he had learned yet another monstrous truth, and had suddenly had a nightmarish choice foisted upon him. Two months since his dreams had deserted him, leaving him bereft and forced to select a path without any further esoteric guidance.

What had he ever done, he wondered, to be so accursed by the gods that he had to make such terrible choices and commit such monstrous acts? He was certain that no matter which choice he made, it would be wrong. But he had to choose one future, and only one.

He could not save both Fai and his country. One of them had to die. Maybe both would die, if he chose Fai and yet couldn't find a way to force Fai to kill him and disable the second curse. His murder of Seresu would be for nothing if that second curse swallowed both Fai and the whole world.

Maybe, Ashura thought, he would choose Seresu and kill Fai, and suffer the consequences so his country could survive. But the Seresu that survived might also end up dying anyway. The new paths of destiny had felt somehow damaged when they had realigned in that final dream. And after, in that future there had been a cancer spreading in Seresu, a sickness at its core, a breakdown in causality and the rules that governed reality. Was that the true price of breaking faith with the Witch of Dimensions? Would violating his contract with her result not only in his own destruction, but also cause Seresu to experience rot and corruption from within, with the patterns of all things dissolving, growing ever more disordered and chaotic until reality itself became a living hell? Was that slow corrosion something that the wizards could even detect, let alone control and heal?

Maybe the choice was a futile, cosmic joke. Maybe there was no way to save anything or anyone.

Before he had learned of the second future, the future that he had believed might save Seresu, he had almost reconciled himself to his fate. As a last resort, he had planned to accept the madness that would drive him to increase his magic through the murder of his whole country. He had hoped he would enough power to exceed Fai's, enough to trigger the first curse and force Fai to kill him. In that way he had hoped to dispose of both of Fai's curses, thereby freeing the child from his enthrallment to the dark sorcerer and saving the rest of the world. But Ashura had always planned to look for other, less drastic alternatives. He had always hoped he could find another way.

And now he had one.

He dropped his head into his hands. In two months he hadn't been able to make himself do anything to secure either future, nor, for that matter, to take any kind of action at all one way or the other. Instead he had procrastinated and dithered while consumed with dark thoughts, and outwardly had pretended that everything was normal and sane and that life was just fine. Yet all the while he knew which choice he should make, which path he should follow.

He had a responsibility and a duty to his country. That it conflicted with his contract with the Witch of Dimensions was irrelevant. Long before he had met her, he had taken sacral vows to always put Seresu first. The decision should have been simple, if not easy. But this particular choice was not simple.

He wondered if he really had a timetable in which to fulfill that particular future. Fai's death and his own were all that was required to save the world. Did it matter when those deaths occurred, or how? Ashura wasn't sure. He only knew that the longer he waited, the more attached he would grow to Fai, and the less likely it became that he could make himself commit the necessary act of murder. But ultimately, no matter how it was accomplished, this path guaranteed Fai's doom. Ashura couldn't bear it, but did he really have a choice in anything?

He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ornate ceiling, his mind frantically ranging over other possibilities. Maybe he didn't have to kill Fai himself. Suppose he abandoned Fai on some other world and then found a way to die himself. He could always pay an assassin anonymously to kill him. They were easy enough to find, and gold was acceptable remuneration in many worlds. It would doom an innocent world, but did that matter? Why, he wondered, should it matter which people died, which world Fai's second curse devoured? He'd still be condemning Fai, who was also innocent. But Seresu was innocent, too. It deserved a chance for life. Didn't it?

No, he thought, closing his eyes. The plan was cowardly, and terribly, terribly cruel. It was far too easy to imagine the child's despair and terror when he was abandoned, and then when his second curse activated and consumed him. Better to just kill Fai cleanly. Besides, ultimately Ashura knew the scheme wasn't possible. That plan could never succeed, even if he were heartless enough to attempt it. The ancient magic of the Divine Spear of Madness wouldn't permit him to commit suicide until its terms were fulfilled. He'd already tried and failed to kill himself a number of times before he'd met Fai.

The whole idea was simply an irrational byproduct of his desperate, disordered state of mind. He already knew certain key events of either destiny facing him had to be fulfilled. As he also knew that he couldn't just take Fai and run away; as long as as both he and Fai lived, they would be drawn back to Seresu when the time was right, no matter where they went, no matter what world they hoped would shelter them. He and Seresu were bound together in primal, esoteric ways, just as his fate and Fai's were also inextricably linked.

If he were to follow the second path, the path that could save Seresu, he had to kill Fai.

Sometimes, he wanted to scream and scream to the heavens until his throat was raw and bleeding and his voice was lost, to cry out for someone—anyone—to help him. He never did. Even that hopeless gesture was rife with peril and potential disaster. He was afraid of who—or what—might answer. The powers of the universe did sometimes pay attention, and they were anything but benign, as he had learned to his terror, sorrow, and regret.

Ashura knew he was on his own. He had to choose a future. Either Fai or Seresu must die.

He closed his eyes. Fai...

And so his thoughts spun round and round like a mental whirlwind, and he was unwilling to stop them, make a decision, and stick with it. Even after two months of agonizing over everything he had learned, he could not make a decision. But then, this wasn't the kind of decision one should make without a great deal of consideration. Or so he told himself.

It didn't matter how much thought he gave it. The choice would destroy him, Ashura knew, as surely as his own suppressed nature would one day drive him mad and make him murder his people. Perhaps he had been better off all along not knowing. At least then he could have had hope that he might someday find a way save both his country and his son. Now, though, he knew the naked truth. There was no way to save both. There might not be any way to save either. And time was running out. The alternate future he had seen, the future where Seresu had a chance to survive him, would not exist for much longer. Perhaps a year, at most. He couldn't procrastinate forever, not with so much at stake. Soon, too soon, he would be forced to make a decision, lest choice be removed from his hands once more.

Maybe the dark sorcerer really had given him a gift by hiding that alternative from him. And maybe, Ashura thought forlornly, he really had been a fool to spurn the gift.

A tap on his door roused him from his contemplation of two equally horrible futures. Lord Suhail projected his voice into the room and asked for admittance. Grateful for any distraction, Ashura bid him enter.

He watched the old wizard come into the room and bow. "Your Majesty," Suhail said.

"What brings you here, my lord?"

"It concerns Lord Fai, Majesty."

Inwardly, Ashura flinched. To hide any wayward reactions, he looked down at his paperwork. "Yes? What about Fai?"

"Lord Fai has been asking to learn some simple healing magic techniques." Suhail held himself with rigid care.

Ashura couldn't hold back a sigh. Depending upon the choice he made, soon there might not be any such concerns. But life had to be lived, no matter how harsh and painful it became. Besides, he still hadn't made any decisions. He had some time yet, so for now he would dwell only in the present, as he had done every day for the past two months.

As always, abandoning other concerns and focusing solely on Fai's needs came easily to him. It was as though Fai were his sole reason for existing, as though Fai's welfare was his only destiny. On some occasions, fortunately rare, when he looked at Fai he was overwhelmed by those feelings. It was always a little disconcerting, and at times quite alarming. He had previously believed it was his past losses, his curse, and his contract with the Witch of Dimensions that caused him to lose perspective like that. That had always been his assumption, but lately he wondered if something else, something perhaps related to an even greater destiny than Seresu's, was at work. The idea resonated in his soul, because so much hinged on whether Fai lived or died...

Usually he fought his tendency to put Fai above all other things, and did his best to maintain his objectivity. But not this time...this time he embraced that destiny and obsession.

"Any healing magic is far too advanced for him, but it seems a harmless enough request," Ashura said. "Is there a problem? Just tell him he can start learning after he's mastered the basics." Assuming Fai lived long enough to do so... Still, they had to proceed as though he would.

"He would do better to focus on spells that did not require such fine, detailed control," Suhail said neutrally.

"Ah." Ashura lifted his head, belatedly understanding Suhail's concern. "His power. Well, he is young yet. It will be frustrating for him, to be sure, but someday he might learn to at least heal minor injuries."

"Your Majesty," Suhail interrupted. "Forgive me for being so blunt, but Lord Fai will never be able to successfully use any healing magic. There is no sense pretending otherwise. His power is simply too great to allow him to perform those kinds of minute, delicate manipulations. Even were his power halved, he would never be capable of healing even a simple scratch."

Ashura fell silent for a moment. He knew all that already. Even the strongest of healing mages were only midrange in terms of raw power reserves, and the best healers often had less. That very lack of power, combined with an extraordinary aptitude for fine, detailed workmanship, made them capable of the subtle, intricate, and painstaking manipulations of living tissue and life essence patterns. If they weren't magicians, they'd probably be elite jewelers, clockmakers, and embroiderers.

Finally, he ventured, "I managed to learn some..." But it was only a knee-jerk protest. Ashura could use a variety of internal detoxification and protective spells, but he couldn't cure a real illness. He could manage to heal simple physical injuries—cuts, bruises, and the like—but it took a great effort of concentration on his part. He'd once told Fai that he could repair a dead body, and that much was true. He could make cosmetic modifications to dead flesh, but balancing the elemental humors of a living organism or knitting tissue, blood, and bone were almost completely beyond him. He could magically raze an entire fortress to the ground if need be, but that very same power meant he could never develop the light, delicate touch required for sophisticated healing. No amount of practice would change that. And Fai's power reserves were much, much greater.

"Majesty, I wouldn't trust you to remove a splinter," Suhail said bluntly. "Not with magic, at any rate. I believe you'd probably do fine with a pair of tweezers."

Now, that was a bit harsh, and something of an exaggeration. But not much, and the truth could not be denied. Ashura repressed a grimace. Just because it was true didn't mean he liked hearing it stated so baldly. He said archly, "Thank you."

Suhail lifted a single eyebrow, but remained silent.

"Fai is different from us," Ashura said slowly. "He will prove capable of things I cannot even begin to imagine."

It was true. Fai would one day be amazing. Even now, he had enough power to stop an avalanche in its tracks. Who knew what else he could do, especially when he grew up and his power grew and matured with him?

How could Ashura cut short all that potential? He couldn't, he couldn't—but he should...

"Healing will not be one of those things." Suhail sounded absolutely certain. "It is not just the strength of his power, but its very nature. There is something odd there, something in the way it is balanced..."

There were many odd things about Fai's power, so Ashura dismissed that statement. He tuned out Suhail and focused on thoughts of Fai. He recalled that Fai had mentioned wanting to learn healing magic before, more than once. While he hoped Suhail was wrong, Ashura knew from his own experiences how difficult that road would be for Fai.

Still, Fai was different. There could be no denying that. Perhaps his power wouldn't hamper him. Look at the Witch of Dimensions. She wielded world-shattering amounts of power, and yet Ashura was certain she could easily use healing magic if she desired. Given the chance, Fai might very well turn out more like her than he would any native-born magician of Seresu. It might take many, many years, but maybe Fai could eventually learn the exquisite control necessary.

No matter what decision Ashura made, no matter which future he chose, there was no sense in discouraging Fai at this time. It wouldn't matter at all if Fai died. And then, if he lived, Fai's healing ability or lack thereof might be less a matter of power making the wielder clumsy, and more one of experience and control. Those things would mature over the years.

"The techniques are far too advanced for him," Ashura said, repeating himself. "For now, simply tell him that he has not yet progressed enough to study them. We can make a better assessment of his capabilities once he has more mastery over his power. He may yet surprise us."

"Majesty, you are only delaying the inevitable," Suhail said. "Once he starts experimenting on his own, he is bound to try to learn a healing spell or two. He is tenacious. He will find spells in the library. He already speaks of it."

"He cannot even begin to read or comprehend those texts yet. It will be some time before he can." Ashura willfully overlooked the fact that Fai had demonstrated already that he comprehended enough to decipher some basic aspects of simple traveling spells.

"Majesty—"

"No." Ashura couldn't stand it any longer. It was so futile. Either Fai would live, or he would die. Either he would be capable of some healing magic, or he wouldn't. But neither subject would be settled now, not silently in Ashura's head nor in a verbal discussion with Suhail. There was no point going round and round, so he would put an end to this tiresome conversation. "We will wait and see, and do no more. Is that understood, Lord Wizard?" Ashura said implacably.

Suhail's lips compressed into a thin line, but he accepted the order. In response, he bowed his head. "Understood, Your Majesty."

"Good. You're dismissed."

After Suhail had left, Ashura got up and went to stand before the window. It was late spring, which admittedly didn't mean much in Luval. The castle floated too high in the northern Riphean Mountains to ever warm up, and so remained frozen alongside the alpine peaks and glaciers. But spring and summer at least brought much longer periods of daylight, along with a cessation of new snowfall and bitter ice storms. The lack of those things was always a blessing. The weather was clear more often than not, and the bright sunshine made the snow and ice sparkle and pick up the pure blue color of the sky.

Luval Town would also remain cold. But because its elevation was lower, beneath the tree line, it always saw some thawing. Fresh green leaves and hardy, short-lived wildflowers had already joined the dull evergreen trees to soften the town's environs, even though the snow never melted away completely.

Beyond the mountains, the rest of the country was enjoying its brief growing season. Ashura had received reports that this year was turning out to be unusually fertile, among the crops, the mines, the herds, and even the people. There was new life everywhere, even in Seresu's harsh climate and rocky soil.

Ashura wished it could last forever. Not just springtime, but everything. Seresu, in all its seasons and fragile variety. Deep winter had its harsh beauty, no less compelling than the brevity of summer or the delicacy of new spring buds. But nothing lasted forever. Impermanence was the only universal constant. Everything died, eventually. Not just people, plants, and animals, but also countries, and worlds, and even dreams. Simple existence, like beauty and joy, was always ephemeral.

He thought about Seresu, and Fai, and the transitory, mortal nature of all things.

Perhaps he had already made his decision, and he just hadn't admitted it to himself yet.


	44. Chapter 44

Fai practically bounced into the castle. He'd just come in from his riding lesson, down in the bailey beneath the floating mountain, and thought he was getting really good. His teachers wouldn't let him canter or gallop his horse yet, but even they agreed he could probably try soon. That would be so fun.

One of the lower-ranked gentry met him and bowed. "Lord Fai," the man said. "The king wishes to see you in his office."

"Really?" Fai asked, surprised. King Ashura usually didn't talk to him there. Usually it was anywhere else, in fact. It must be something important. "Okay. But I'd better change first." Fai didn't want to go to a more formal meeting in his sweaty, smelly riding clothes.

He went back to his apartment and changed into everyday wear, which meant clothes that were really very nice. Even after all these months, Fai still loved new clothes, and now he could indulge himself as much as he wanted. Lady Kendappa was happy about that, and even the king seemed charmed, albeit a little befuddled, by the joy Fai took in clothing.

King Ashura was sitting at his desk when Fai entered the office. The king looked up from his paperwork and greeted Fai with a smile. "Hello, Fai."

"Your Majesty," Fai said formally. He didn't bow, though. He never bowed, not anywhere, not even in the throne room. Often he even got to stand on the dais next to the throne when the king was receiving some minor official business. That was really neat. He sometimes marveled how everyone just accepted all of that, and how it pleased the king. He still thought it a bit strange, but he had to admit that he liked having all the special privileges.

"How was your riding lesson?"

"It was great! I'm getting really good," he boasted. The king smiled again, which encouraged him. "I can walk and trot. The horse master says I've got a good seat and can start learning to gallop pretty soon."

"Excellent." King Ashura leaned back. "I'm glad to hear you've become so comfortable on horseback, because we're going to be spending a fair amount of time riding in the coming weeks. We're going on progress."

Oh, that sounded interesting. Fai knew that the king was required to travel about the country visiting the royal holdings and the estates of his vassals. He'd been told that activity usually began during early spring, but that this year the king had held off. "Where are we going?"

"To the Southlands," King Ashura told him. "We will be leaving in a week and will be there during midsummer when the Feast of Sun's Wending is celebrated. I promised you I would show you the warmer areas of Seresu. The next few months will be perfect for that. Also, we will visit a number of keeps during the course of this trip, including Clissin, since it's on the way."

"Oh." Fai had mixed feelings about the destinations. He really wanted to see Clissin, because he knew it was his. He'd never owned a whole estate before, and now he had two, plus a silver mine. That was so incredible, and he was amazed anew every time he pondered it. But if they went to the Southlands, they'd have to see Lord Taishakuten again.

The king gave him a knowing look. "I am aware that you're uncomfortable around Lord Taishakuten, but this really is a good time to go. The border has been unusually quiet these past months, so we should take advantage of that. Also, the Southlands are very beautiful this time of year. They thaw completely, so there won't be any snow or ice. The fields are already planted and sprouted. It will be quite a different perspective for you from Luval."

Fai actually wasn't all that uncomfortable around Lord Taishakuten; he was only a little nervous because of the way the warlord focused on the king. However, King Ashura didn't know that. Besides, Fai didn't want the king to know that he had only acted afraid of Lord Taishakuten to have him sent away. But that had been over two months ago. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem. "It's okay."

King Ashura looked at him thoughtfully. "There is a royal hunting lodge some twelve miles from Taishakuten's principal stronghold. Actually, it's a small castle, but we call it a lodge. It isn't often used, but we can always retire there for a day or two if things become too burdensome for you."

"Really?" That sounded like a good idea and reconciled Fai to seeing Lord Taishakuten again so soon. He looked forward to the rest of the trip. "It'll be interesting to see other parts of the country. I'd really like to see Clissin."

"The people there need to see you, too," the king said. "You're their lord now, so you need to show yourself to them. About, oh, I'd say one third of the court will be traveling with us. We'll be gone from Luval for several months, so you should consider if there's anything special you'd like to take with you. Your servants will see to packing all else." King Ashura looked hesitant for a moment, like he was making a really big decision, then said, "Perhaps you had best go visit your brother to say goodbye. You will be kept quite busy over the next week while everyone gets ready to move."

Oh. Fai considered that. He wouldn't be able to visit Brother-Fai the whole time he'd be gone. But Brother-Fai wouldn't mind, and he would still be here after Fai got back. "You're right," Fai said. "When can we go to the shrine?" The king looked pretty busy, so they probably wouldn't go down there for a while.

The king gave him a long look. "Why don't you go now?"

It took a moment to sink in. Fai's eyes widened. "By myself?" he breathed.

King Ashura nodded slowly. "You've shown exceptional control in your magic, and your emotions have stabilized a great deal. I think you can go by yourself."

"Oh. Oh, wow," Fai said, not sure what to think. He unwillingly remembered how he had almost crashed the whole mountain when he'd lost control in the shrine after he'd first come to Luval. But the king now trusted him to go there by himself. "I'm... I don't..." He scuffed a toe on the carpet, suddenly insecure.

"You won't be completely unsupervised, Fai," the king added, watching him carefully. "I will monitor the shrine lightly, but I will not violate your privacy. I won't know what you say to your brother. I'll only know if things get...a little problematic," he finished delicately.

That made Fai feel better, and his mood lightened. He wouldn't have to worry about anything bad happening that way. And he could talk to Brother-Fai all by himself!

The king said, "From now on, you can go to the shrine by yourself any time you want, but you must still tell me when you go. That is your only restriction now. Why don't we see how that works out for a while? All right?"

Fai nodded vigorously. "Yes, Your Majesty. I promise." He fidgeted again, wanting to leave right away.

King Ashura smiled at him. "Go on, Fai. Go see him."

Fai thanked the king and rushed out the door. He thought he heard the king laugh a little behind him, but he didn't stop to check.

The way to the shrine had never seemed to take so long before. Was it because it was the very first time he'd been allowed to go there without the king? He wanted to run, but that would attract too much attention, and someone was sure to complain or tell him to slow down. So instead he walked as fast as he could.

When he got to the shrine, he carefully used his magic to open the great doors. It wasn't the first time he'd done that; the king had made him practice before on other trips to the shrine. But it was the very first time he'd ever done it without supervision, so he was glad that the doors opened without any difficulty.

He went straight to the sacred pool, walked out onto one of the platforms, and stared down. Deep under the water, Brother-Fai rested in his crystal coffin. He hadn't changed at all. It was a miracle.

One time, when he and King Ashura had come here, the king had checked the preservation spells and then told Fai that the enchantments didn't need to be refreshed. He had said it was because the fluorite phoenix egg had special magic. Fai hoped that fact would continue to hold true, at least until he got the feathers that the scary sorcerer had promised would preserve Brother-Fai forever.

On that thought, his previous elation plummeted into despondency. He hadn't thought about the bad sorcerer in a long time.

He didn't allow himself to wallow, though, and pushed the unhappy thoughts away. Although he knew he'd keep getting reminders of the terrible promises he'd made throughout his whole life, he wouldn't actually have to do any of those things for a long, long time. And, he thought, looking down into the sacred pool, it would be worth it, no matter what dreadful, evil things he'd have to do...because one day, after it was all over, Brother-Fai would come back to life.

"Hello, Brother," he said, gazing down into the water. He was still careful not to refer to Brother-Fai by name. The king had promised not to listen to what Fai said, but old habits died hard, and really, this was a good habit to keep. He didn't want to accidentally slip up and refer to his brother by his real name where people could hear. However, it also made him sad, because it was just one more way he was lying to King Ashura. That made him feel so terribly guilty, but it was necessary. And most of the time he wasn't lying to or using the king. He really did like it in Seresu. He really did wish his life here could go on forever, and he could forget everything else.

But he knew that the bad sorcerer wouldn't let him forget. And besides, he had an obligation to Brother-Fai. Brother-Fai came first. Fai was pretty sure that the king would agree, if he ever discovered the truth. But Fai really didn't want to think about the consequences of that. The king could never, ever learn the truth. It would be too unbearable.

So Fai decided not to think about it, and to just visit with his brother.

"I've got so much to tell you," Fai said. He sat down. "I can come here by myself now. Can you believe it? The king already trusts me enough to let me come alone. He's keeping an eye on me with magic to make sure nothing goes wrong, but that's okay. I don't want to accidentally crash the mountain. And pretty soon, if things work out, I think he won't even do that anymore. Both he and Lord Suhail say my progress with magic is really good."

He gazed into the pool at his unresponsive brother, so deep beneath the liquid surface. It tore at his heart, how Brother-Fai lay unmoving down there, forever frozen in the terrible sleep of death. His resolve to resurrect his brother firmed all over again. But there was nothing he could do about that yet. Not until he was all grown up and a great magician.

Which reminded him... He leaned over the pool, opened his mouth, and pulled down his lower lip to expose the gap in his bottom front teeth. A ridge of white was just barely beginning to break through the left side of the gum. "Look. I've lost two teeth, and a new one is already growing in. King Ashura says that the old ones were just a childhood milk teeth and that the new one coming in is an adult tooth." The words were somewhat garbled. He let go of his lip. "King Ashura made this big fuss over my teeth when they fell out, so I gave them to him. He encased them in crystal and put them in the center of a display shelf." He paused thoughtfully. "I think he just did that to be nice." Then he opened his mouth again and wiggled one of his upper front teeth. "And look, another one is really loose. King Ashura says all my milk teeth will eventually fall out and be replaced by adult teeth. He says that means I'm growing up. That's neat, but the gap and the loose tooth make it kind of hard to whistle right. I'm having to really work at it."

That was irritating. It was good to be growing up, but now he had to concentrate hard to get sounds out when he whistled, and more often than not he failed. It was so hard that he couldn't also focus on magic at the same time. It was so unfair! He had finally been allowed to whistle while doing magic. He had finally gotten to see the results, which had not been spectacular. The pillows he had levitated while whistling had only shaken a little. Despite that, the king had assured him that one day he would be able to do amazing things with his whistling. But now he couldn't do anything like that at all. It really was very frustrating.

Fai sat back, contemplating his brother. "I've never told you this before, because it didn't seem right to say it with the king nearby, but I've got property now. It's so amazing. King Ashura gave it to me, oh, months ago. But I still can't believe I own two estates and a silver mine. I think...I'm pretty sure that means I'm rich." He paused, again pondering the wonder of it all. "The king is going on progress to the Southlands, and he's taking me along with him. We're going to visit Clissin on the way. That's one of my estates. The king says I need to be seen by the people there, because I'm their lord now. I think it's like how he has to show himself to the whole country, so he can't stay in Luval all the time." He thought about that. "I guess that means we'll also be going to Marilon and the Thorris mine pretty soon, just not on this trip. So I'll probably be away again later."

He paused again, looking around. The shrine's drifting clouds of magic glowed in soft pastels. Occasionally, there would be a burst of pretty sparkles. Fai never tired of watching it. The shrine didn't love him or welcome him like it did the king, but then Fai didn't belong to the shrine like King Ashura did. However, the shrine never rejected him. It always felt good to be here. Fai was glad his brother was in the sacred pool. The shrine was a safe, comfortable place for both of them.

"We're going to be leaving in a week, and King Ashura says I'll probably be too busy to visit again before then. So here I am." He hugged himself and sniffled. "I really miss you, Brother. I wish you'd lived. I wish you could be here. You'd really like this life."

If only Brother-Fai hadn't died. Then Fai would never have made those horrible promises to the scary sorcerer, and he and his brother could have lived happily ever after in Seresu.

Oh. No. No, they couldn't have, could they?

He'd almost forgotten. He and Brother-Fai together were an omen of ill fortune. It had been a long time since he'd thought about it, but if Brother-Fai had lived, they couldn't have come here. They wouldn't have had a nice life anywhere. Even if King Ashura had been willing to take them both despite their misfortune, they would have eventually killed Seresu, just like they had killed Valeria.

It wasn't fair.

Fai knew life wasn't fair. He knew he just had to make the best of what fate handed him. But he still hated it. Someday, when he brought Brother-Fai back to life, he'd also bring the misfortune back to life. Then he and Brother-Fai would have to leave Seresu and King Ashura forever. It was the only way to make sure everyone here stayed safe once Brother-Fai was alive again.

Times like this, he wanted to cry.

He didn't, though. Instead, he sighed, "I'm so sorry for everything, but someday I'll find a way to fix it," and spent a long time talking to his brother about whatever came to mind.


	45. Chapter 45

Fai had never been so tired in all his life.

Or so it seemed to him at the moment, when he felt like toppling from his saddle. He knew, though, that it wasn't true. He'd always been tired and run down while he'd been imprisoned in Valeria. He had become used to it there. But in Seresu, he usually felt pretty good. He took good health for granted now, and so noticed the difference.

But this kind of tired wasn't bad like when he'd been trapped in that pit. Really, this was a nice kind of tired. That's what he told himself.

He clutched his reins a little tighter so he wouldn't drop them in his fatigue, and let his body move with his palfrey's easy walk. The horse was well-trained and had been chosen for its smooth, comfortable gait and gentle disposition, but Fai wasn't a very hardened rider. He had enough experience from his lessons that he didn't get too achy or saddle sore, but this trip was very, very long. He thought it would go on forever, and yet they'd only been on the road for five days.

Fai knew that an army could march to the Southlands in about a week, even in the middle of winter. However, an army was composed of strong warriors who could be driven at all speed. The king's cortege was huge and varied. It included a large troop of guardsmen, court nobles and their retinues, and a variety of attendants that ranged from mages, scribes, administrators, and physicians to cooks, grooms, armorers, carters, and man- and maidservants. Fai's tutors also rode with the cortege, although they didn't have much to do. The king had told Fai he wouldn't be expected to study until they got to the Southlands and settled in for a few weeks.

The king had even brought along four of the court wizards, including one that bore the coveted D title, Lord Syed D Greenstone. The entire column kept the pace to a walk to accommodate the slower baggage wains that carried not only clothing, food, linens, plate, and money, but also weapons, camp accoutrements, and even items of furniture like chairs and beds.

A royal progress wasn't a simple undertaking, Fai had discovered. An entire household moved with the king. He had also learned that the royal cortege was in reality a mobile government. The king attended to a lot of business during the rest breaks and in the afternoon when they stopped traveling. Sometimes, in the evenings, he looked just as tired as Fai felt. Fai was glad no one expected him to work while they were on the road.

Lord Vainamoinen and Lord Suhail had stayed behind in Luval so that an authoritative presence remained in the country's primary seat of power, but Lady Kendappa rode alongside the king and Fai. Before they had begun the trip, the king had given her the option of staying behind, but she had only slanted upon him an odd look and replied, "Someone has to keep an eye on you and Fai, and since you aren't keeping company with Lady Eliina anymore..." She had let her words trail off suggestively.

The king, though, had only appeared mystified and then made a less than flattering comment about mother hens. Lady Kendappa had retaliated with a cutting remark about common sense, and the two of them launched into another round of squabbling.

Fai was happy she'd elected to come along. Now that he had gotten used to her sharp wit, he enjoyed being around her. Her lively conversation helped make even the most tedious parts of the trip seem to go faster.

Not that the journey was dull. Quite the contrary. Fai was getting a good look at his adopted country, and it fascinated him. As they had wound their way down from the northern mountains he had seen the snow and ice lessen, and the jagged cliffs softened into gentler hills. Not that the hilly terrain was warm or easy to navigate. If he hadn't been living among the highest mountains for months, he'd have assumed that these hills actually were mountains. But by comparison, they were kinder. The king called them "foothills," because they were the lower ground rises at the foot, or base, of the mountain range.

Even on the first day, as they descended well beyond Luval Town, Fai had noticed a change in the air. He couldn't really describe it, but somehow it had felt thicker and he didn't have to breathe as deeply. He had also felt strangely lighter. He had debated for a bit then asked about it, knowing he sounded silly.

"It's not silly at all," King Ashura had told him. "The air is thinner up high than it is at lower elevations. That is one reason why we are taking our time. We will stop early today. It is to give everyone time to acclimate to the different conditions. When we return, we will take longer—several days—to make the ascent so all can become accustomed to the thinner air."

"Will it be bad for us?" Fai had asked. He was only a little worried. If it were dangerous, the king would have used some kind of magic to protect them. Wouldn't he?

"No, not really. It is possible that you may notice then that it is harder to breathe at first, and you may feel lightheaded or a little ill, or perhaps develop a headache. However, over time everyone becomes used to it. In fact, you likely will not be affected at all, because you've been living at Luval for many months now."

By "everyone," Fai had assumed the king meant him and was just being kind. The others had made this trip many times before and didn't seem to notice anything amiss. But it did give him food for thought. When he had originally come to Seresu, he hadn't felt very good at first. He had assumed it was just because he'd been tired and sick from being in the pit so long, and in so much grief and guilt over Brother-Fai's death and the shock of his promises to the bad sorcerer. But now he thought that maybe his problems had been made worse by the thinner air. He didn't ask, though. He didn't want to dredge up too many of those old memories.

Instead, he asked, "What about when you teleport? That's not a gradual change." Fai had never been teleported from the mountains into the lowlands, but he knew the king had done so.

The king smiled. "Once you are accustomed to the high altitude and have made the journey to lower elevations a few times, you don't even feel the change."

"Why is that?"

"It has something to do with having a stronger constitution from breathing the thinner air higher up, but I'm not a healer so I don't know the details. The physicians and healing mages can tell you more if you're curious."

The topic was fascinating, especially since Fai wanted to learn healing magic someday. He resolved to ask the healers about it when he next got the chance.

The lower they traveled, the less snow and more variety and greenery Fai saw. They passed villages and hamlets with small patches of land for crops, as well as huge tracts of forest and wild, uncultivated areas for grazing livestock. Fai gawked at the herds of reindeer and goats that dotted the rugged hill country. There were even fields of mountain wildflowers that glowed in the sun with riotous colors despite the half-melted snow and ice.

Everywhere they journeyed, people came out to see them. Sometimes it was a crowd, and sometimes just a herdsman or two. The people came right up to the road, and some even ran alongside the horses, calling and waving. Fai was worried at first by that behavior, but the king and Lady Kendappa only smiled and waved back, and the guards didn't even draw their weapons; they only made sure no one got too close or blocked the road.

The entourage stayed on well-traveled roads, due to the carts, luggage, and sheer size of the column. Well-traveled, Fai learned, often really meant "in need of repair." Sometimes the carts got bogged down in large potholes or thick, freezing mud. Then, while the carters dealt with the problem, King Ashura would summon an administrator to discuss the state of such stretches, making note of the repairs required and the responsible parties that would be notified.

He explained to Fai that this was also part of a royal progress, in that such travels allowed him and his advisors to see the state of the kingdom for themselves, rather than rely solely on second-hand information from officials and inspectors.

There were many reasons why the roads might remain in a bad state. Sometimes the responsible landholder or township couldn't afford repairs, and sometimes the local rulers were just too cheap or lazy. Sometimes they simply were unaware of the problem, or there were other, unexpected issues. And sometimes, the weather conditions just plain didn't permit the road to be fixed.

This inspection wasn't limited to the roads. It included everything that might catch the king's eye, like the condition of the fields, the town buildings, the fortifications of castles and manors, and the state of any other critical asset. If nothing else, knowing the king might venture by during a progress kept the various owners and caretakers from slacking off their responsibilities too badly. The king often summoned and spoke to the local authorities as part of the trip.

This activity also explained why the king didn't simply teleport from place to place, as Fai had naïvely assumed they would do for at least part of the journey. Of course, Fai knew it was impractical to teleport so large a group. It would require many high-level wizards to accomplish that feat, and would exhaust them as they would be required to make many trips to teleport the whole of the traveling court. But he had wondered why the king and wizards didn't just transport themselves and some others about the kingdom and let the rest of the court catch up. Now Fai knew that the king could never see the everyday problems and issues if he didn't spend time on the road.

Someday, King Ashura had told him, he would be responsible for taking care of his own estates and would need to perform similar duties. Fai thought hard about that, feeling very small, insignificant, and a little helpless. It seemed like such a huge job, requiring a lot of work, responsibility, and knowledge. It was an intimidating idea.

"I had the exact same concerns at your age," King Ashura had said with a smile.

"You?" Fai asked, surprised. The king always seemed so confident and competent at everything.

"Oh, yes. It is something you have to learn and grow into. No one is born knowing such things." He smiled again. "You needn't worry. It will be many years before you assume that role. By then, you will be ready for it."

Relieved, Fai had absorbed as many details of the countryside as he could. Not just because he was now a landowner—that was still too amazing for him to really comprehend—but also simply because it was so fascinating. He'd never before experienced a long trip like this one, and didn't want to miss any of it.

During the early part of the progress, the cortege had really only traveled for little more than half days, with rest breaks along the way. They had always stopped in the early afternoon, and had stayed in the best lodgings available wherever they rested. One day, that had been the sumptuous manor of the mayor of a large town, which accommodated the greater nobility and their most important servants, although Fai had no idea where the lesser members of the household slept. On another day, the court was housed in the fortified keep of a local lord. Both the mayor and the lord had professed their gratitude at the honor done them and thrown impressive feasts. In courtesy and common sense, the king kept the visits to short stays of but one or two nights, despite invitations to remain longer. Fai had wondered why they didn't accept, and the king had quietly explained that so large an entourage would beggar their hosts if they stayed on too long. While many of the costs of lodging came out of the royal purse, so many people and animals would easily strip the supplies from their hosts' estates and create an undue burden on smaller landholders. Only the greater nobility could absorb the cost of maintaining the royal court for longer durations.

On other days, stopping for the night meant camping in a field or forest alongside the road. Not that camping with the king was a rudimentary affair. The pavilion tents were heated with braziers and comfortably furnished, and thick rugs covered the bare earth. The food, while simpler than at Luval, was still delicious.

However, despite the easy pace, after near a week of travel Fai was practically falling off his horse, he was so tired. It was long past the time they usually stopped for the day, and there was no sign they were going to stop anytime soon for anything other than a short break to rest the animals. There were several enclosed, well-cushioned wagons along with the entourage for those of the nobility who lacked the endurance to ride for long, like some of the older gentlemen and the delicate ladies, but neither the king nor Lady Kendappa ever made use of them. Fai didn't want to use them, either, so never made any complaint.

But he was so tired. His eyes kept closing, and he so wanted to sleep. Thoughtlessly, he let his hands rest on the pommel of his saddle, barely hanging onto the reins, and his head drooped forward.

"Hold," King Ashura said, waking Fai up. He felt like he should be embarrassed that he had fallen asleep on his horse, but he was too tired to care. He just wanted them to get where they were going so he could finally rest.

The king nudged his horse closer. He reached over and took hold of the reins of Fai's mount, bringing them both to a stop. "Here, child, you're exhausted. Ride with me for a while." He reached over and pulled Fai to his own mount, settling Fai before him. "I'm sorry for it, Fai, but we will be pushing on much longer today. I hope to make Clissin in a few more hours."

"Clissin?" Fai woke up a bit more at that.

The king smiled. "You will see it before dusk. Now, go ahead and take a nap. I promise I'll wake you when we arrive." He beckoned a groom to ride forward and take control of Fai's palfrey, then he wrapped an arm about Fai's waist to hold him in place.

Fai didn't argue at all. His eyes kept closing, but now he felt secure and wasn't worried about toppling into the mud. Lady Kendappa made a light remark; the king replied softly. Fai didn't pay attention, even though he thought they were talking about him. He was just grateful the king hadn't made him ride in one of the enclosed carriages with the old men and ladies. He leaned back against King Ashura and closed his eyes.


	46. Chapter 46

"Fai," the king's voice broke into the velvet darkness. "Fai, wake up."

Fai lifted his head and rubbed his eyes with his fists. He made a soft, unhappy sound at being awakened from his cozy nap. The steady, gentle rocking motion of the king's mount lulled him. He felt too warm and comfortable to wake up.

"We'll be arriving at Clissin soon, Fai." There was a note of amusement in the king's voice. "But you can see it tomorrow. We'll be here for a few days. Go back to sleep, child."

Clissin? Fai forced himself to wake up when he heard that. He couldn't miss arriving at Clissin. He rubbed at his eyelids until he could finally get them open. He tilted his head up and back. King Ashura was looking down at him, his face shadowed by the slanting light of the late afternoon sun and the curtain of his long, black hair. The king smiled.

"Well, hello there, Fai," King Ashura said.

Fai blinked and straightened up so he wasn't leaning so much against the king anymore. The arm around his waist fell away, allowing him to sit up better. "We're at Clissin?" Fai mumbled foggily, rubbing his eyes again.

"Almost. I thought you'd like to see a little of the surrounding countryside."

Fai nodded and grew more alert. He looked around. They were in hill country. The road wound its way through the dips and valleys between the rises of land. Fai was surprised to see that the hills were cultivated just as heavily as the gentler, flatter areas. Lines of furrows where plows had turned the earth spiraled up the hills and around any large boulders, of which there were many. The steeper hills were terraced. Green plants grew in tidy rows in the prepared dirt, and Fai saw farmers working with hand tools on the slopes. Even in his inexperience, he could tell that draft animals would be impractical on the very steepest slopes and terraces.

"They farm here?" he asked incredulously. He'd expected farmland to be acres and acres of arable and pasturage, not short runs of flat fields between terraced hills, all filled with great big rocks. Some of those rocks were so large they were hills in and of themselves, and atop them grew trees and bushes. The farmers had simply plowed around the obstacles.

King Ashura answered, "Yes. We're entering the south of the country now. It's warm enough here for a greater variety of crops than the northern lands, although everything grown in Seresu must be harvested no later than mid autumn. The cold and storms return early, even in the south, and there will also be much less sunlight available. The days grow shorter rapidly in the fall."

"It's so...rocky," Fai said, feeling very stupid. He hadn't realized that this hard, rocky land was considered the good farmland in Seresu.

The king chuckled. "Most of Seresu is like this, Fai. We must make do with what we have, lest we become entirely dependent on imported food. That would make us too weak, and endanger our continued independence. Our enemies could easily choke our trade routes and supply lines and starve us into submission if we weren't self sufficient."

Fai nodded, wide-eyed. He remembered his lessons about Seresu's neighbors, especially the hostile country of Arimaspea.

King Ashura added, "Farther south there are farmlands that are much better. If necessary, we can survive on just what we manage to produce ourselves. Still, the land of this country is very harsh. It would be easy to starve in Seresu. Without the minerals, the gold and silver we mine, we would be quite poor and desperate. However, they make the whole country wealthy enough that we can supplement our diet with food grown in warmer countries, and we can import a variety of other materials, as well. And, of course, we have excellent blacksmiths and jewelers, and a thriving trade in wool, furs, and skins."

Fai nodded again as he listened to the lecture. He already knew all that, of course, from his lessons. His tutors had made it plain that the country was harsh and unforgiving, and that it took a lot of hard work to survive, much less prosper, given the limitations and challenges. But then he'd been insulated in Luval; the reality was only just sinking in now that he saw some of the "good" farmlands for himself.

They passed between two very steep, very rocky hills that were too hard and craggy to even terrace. Fai saw flocks of sheep and sure-footed goats grazing on them, and a shepherd standing by and waving. Fai waved back. Even the livestock raised in Seresu had to be hardy, and sheep and goats could thrive in places that animals like cattle couldn't navigate. He remembered the rugged reindeer herds of the northern mountains that could even survive the harsh winters and never-ending cold.

And then they followed a bend in the road, and a great castle came into view. It loomed atop the highest, steepest land in the area. Strong curtain walls of stone encircled it, studded with towers and an impressive gatehouse. The top of the tall, inner keep rose above the enclosing walls. Turrets projected from its corners and walls, and pennants in the royal colors fluttered in the light breeze. The castle and its walls had been whitewashed, with details highlighted in bright yellow paint, and it gleamed in the sun like something out of a fairy tale.

"That is Clissin," the king said.

"Oh," Fai said. He clutched the saddle pommel, unable to take his eyes off the castle. "This is...is really mine?"

"This, and all the surrounding land that we have been passing through. Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes," Fai said breathlessly. It was amazing.

A mounted troop came down from the castle. They stopped a respectable distance from the royal cortege and dismounted, kneeling in the road when the king approached and reined in his horse before them.

"Your Majesty," said the leader, a middle-aged man dressed in fine garments. "I bid you welcome to Clissin."

"Lord Agmundr, arise," the king said. "I would make you known to Lord Fai, my ward and your new liege lord. Lord Fai, Lord Agmundr is the castellan of Clisson castle. He rules and manages it in our place."

Fai watched, wide-eyed and amazed, as the fine lord bowed to him and said, "Lord Fai. Welcome to Clissin." He then introduced the more important of his men.

King Ashura said, "You may all rise and remount." He rode forward. The men in the road moved out of the way then got back onto their own horses and fell in line with the king's troop.

The massive gate doors opened wide, and the portcullis was drawn up. Fai saw that there was another ring of walls and towers inside the first. The king rode through the gatehouse into the lists between the two sets of walls. Animals were penned here, and there were barracks for the guards. Sentries manned both inner and outer walls.

The king's cortege passed through the second gatehouse, and came into the inner bailey. Here was the keep, the heart of the castle, its main stronghold and living quarters. The king stopped in the bailey and dismounted. He helped Fai down. Grooms ran forward to take the horses.

They were joined by Lady Kendappa, Lord Agmundr, and the king's retainers. In the inner bailey the castle servants had been assembled. There was a wave of motion as they all knelt to the king.

King Ashura repeated the introductions. Fai stood wordlessly as countless eyes fixed upon him with curiosity. He was too amazed to say anything, and a little intimidated. It was all still too incredible for him to take in.

Then the king dismissed everyone. As the servants and soldiers dispersed, he turned to Lord Agmundr. "The day grows late, my lord. Let us go within. I confess we are weary from the long ride."

The lord bowed. "Chambers have been prepared for you, Your Majesty, if you and your party would care to rest. The evening meal will be served within the hour."

Lord Agmundr led them into the keep, through the Great Hall, and up the stairs to chambers in the residential level. He ushered them into what Fai thought had to be the most luxurious rooms in the entire castle. A large number of servants bustled about efficiently, divesting them of their outer garments, preparing water for washing, and performing other tasks for the comfort of the royal guests.

Finally, King Ashura dismissed them and Lord Agmundr, who had been hovering nearby and supervising all the servants' activities. In the sudden quiet, the king sat wearily in a chair by the fireplace and gave Fai a wry look. "So, Fai, welcome to Clissin," he said with a crooked smile.

"Is it always like this?" Fai asked.

"Like what?"

"The servants and everyone... They all know what to do and just do it. It's just like Luval." He didn't add that it was pretty much futile to protest while the servants were fussing, which was also just like Luval. Probably they'd have quit if he'd made a scene, but the king had been treated the same as Fai and hadn't complained. Besides, the servants' behavior was reassuring. It didn't even hint that they might be repulsed by him. He remembered his first night in Luval, and how surprised he had been that everyone had seemed pleased by him. It was nice that that was true in Clissin, as well.

And it was his! How amazing was that? He couldn't get over it.

"Of course," King Ashura said. "It's a royal stronghold and residence. They are all run quite efficiently. They were notified of our visit in advance and had plenty of time to prepare."

"Oh."

The king gave him a kindly look. "We won't be eating for a little while. Why don't you take a nap?" He looked like he wanted a nap, himself.

Fai didn't feel like sleeping. He was too excited. "I'm not tired now."

King Ashura's eyes crinkled. "Of course you're not."

"When can I go look around?" he asked enthusiastically. "I want to see everything."

"Tomorrow will be soon enough to survey the castle and its attached lands," the king said. "Tonight you'll be able to investigate the Hall when we eat with the castlefolk, but you will probably find after a good meal that you are more tired than you realize. A nap on horseback is rarely very restful."

"Oh," Fai said, disappointed.

The king gave him a long look. With a sigh, he pushed himself from his chair and stood up. "We can take a quick walk around some of the castle now, Fai," he said.

"Really?" Fai perked up.

"Really. We shall bother Kendappa and see her quarters, and maybe go out to one of the turrets so you can view the countryside. That should pass the time until supper."


	47. Chapter 47

The next day after breakfast had been finished and the trestle tables cleared away, King Ashura ordered Lord Agmundr to assemble the castle soldiers, servants, and highborn vassals in the Great Hall. Clissin didn't have a separate throne room like Luval, so the king sat on a large chair on the two-step dais at the head of the Hall. Fai stood on the dais at King Ashura's right with Lady Kendappa and Lord Syed D Greenstone. Gathered around the king's chair were the most important vassals who had accompanied him. On King Ashura's left was Lord Agmundr. The rest of the gentry present stood at the base of the dais, and behind them the Great Hall was filled with soldiers and common folk.

The king then had Lord Agmundr and all assembled swear fealty and do homage to Fai as their new liege lord, and renew their oaths to the royal house. At first, Fai was nervous. King Ashura had coached him on what to say and do, but he was still afraid he'd make a mistake and ruin things. But it all went well. Lord Agmundr knelt to him, and Fai took his hands. Behind him, the king actually spoke the vows that Lord Agmundr repeated, and all Fai had to do was say the short acceptance that King Ashura had taught him. Clissin's gentry all knelt and made vows together, then all the soldiers and other castlefolk took similar, if simpler, vows.

And then it was over, and the king dismissed everyone to go back to their duties.

"There, Fai, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?" King Ashura said, still sitting in the great chair on the dais.

Fai moved a little closer and shook his head. "So it means they are my people now?" he asked, feeling a peculiar mixture of pride and discomfort with the idea. It seemed a great deal of responsibility.

"Well, in theory," the king temporized. "But until you reach your majority, as your guardian it's my responsibility to look after the estate and its people for you."

Fai nodded, accepting that. Then another thought occurred to him. "Will I have to accept these kinds of oaths at Marilon and Thorris, too?"

"Yes. It's important to take fealty and homage from the people at all one's estates. We will be visiting them later this summer, or perhaps in early fall."

"Part of that oath talked about leading warriors into battle." Fai wrung his hands at that. The prospect of being a warlord frightened him a little, but it excited him, too. He knew the greatest nobles were also fighters and war leaders, and now suddenly realized he would one day become one, as well. He'd just started learning to use the staff, and hadn't even sparred with anyone yet. He'd mostly just learned stances, and how to hold and move the weapon. But he knew he'd receive extensive training in a variety of weapons as he grew up. He could already picture himself at the head of an army, his stallion prancing and rearing heroically as he led his men into victorious battle... It was terrifying and exhilarating. "I'm only just starting to learn to fight."

"You're much too young for that, Fai," King Ashura reassured him. "You won't be expected to lead your own troops for many years, after you've had a great deal of training and experience. Also, in general Seresu is stable and peaceful, and we are on good terms with our allies. There shouldn't be much call for warfare except for the border difficulties with Arimaspea." He smiled in amusement. "But I'm sure that you will become a great general some day."

Fai was chagrined to be caught out like that. Had the fantasies already running wild in his imagination been so obvious?

Fai's embarrassment must have shown on his face, for the king smiled again. "It's all right, Fai," he said, as though reading Fai's mind. "All highborn boys dream of such things. It's expected."

"Did you?"

"Of course. The dreams of young princes are rarely encumbered by realistic limitations or practicalities. When I was your age, I had such dreams of great conquest. I was going to conquer the whole world." He chuckled reminiscently.

"Why didn't you?" Fai couldn't imagine why any king wouldn't go out and conquer the world if he had the right power. Surely a strong wizard king had more than enough power, between his armies, his war wizards, and his own magic.

"Such things are not practical, Fai, unless one is especially blessed by the gods."

"Why not?"

"There are certain political realities that make indiscriminate conquest an undesirable pursuit in this modern day and age," King Ashura said. "The other countries near Seresu are strong and long established, especially Lintukoto, Thule, and the isles of Cantre'r Gwaelod. We have good relations and mutually beneficial treaties and trade agreements with all of them. War with any of them would be quite expensive in terms of both money and lives, and we would also lose the goodwill of all the others. They would band together against us if we provoked them like that."

"What about Arimaspea?" Fai thought that ruling the world sounded pretty good, but the king seemed to think it wasn't worth it. And it was true that it wouldn't be very smart to make enemies of allies. "No one would care if you conquered Arimaspea, would they?"

The king chuckled. "No, probably not. Everyone knows of our long difficulties with Arimaspea, and the king of Lintukoto, at least, would certainly turn a blind eye to such an endeavor. The people of Lintukoto don't enjoy being neighbors with Arimaspea, either, although they do not have as much trouble with the Arimaspi as we do."

"It's because of Seresu's gold, isn't it?"

King Ashura looked at him approvingly. "Indeed. The gold, silver, and all the other mineral deposits that bless our country. King Skudra is driven by a lust for riches and power. He captured a small, neighboring kingdom about thirty years ago just to claim the goldmines there. Great wealth brings with it great power, and he desires to make his kingdom the dominant power in the region. However, Seresu and Lintukoto both agree that Arimaspea should not gain too much power or influence, and I hope to make stronger relations with Thule to hem in Arimaspea even more."

"My tutor said the Arimaspi hate magicians." Fai had found his lessons about Arimaspea disquieting, and recalled his tutor's statements with worry. He thought the king was understating the situation. Some things the tutor had said hinted that the king of Arimaspea also hated King Ashura, and that there was probably more to that hatred than just the Arimaspi dislike of magicians. But no one said so outright, so Fai wasn't sure.

"Yes, they do," King Ashura agreed, "but the situation there is complex. Magicians are not allowed to have much political power, although the Arimaspi rulers certainly put their native mages to excellent use. You must remember that Seresu and Lintukoto are the only northern countries ruled by wizardly royal families."

"Oh, that's right." Fai remembered his tutor telling him that. "But magicians sometimes appear in the other royal houses, right?"

"Yes, due to intermarriage with our allies sometimes mages appear sporadically in their families," King Ashura said. "Also, some of their noble lines are wizardly and as such have prominent places in their governments. Despite that, mages are more common in Seresu and Lintukoto than in other places, for a variety of complicated reasons, and the Arimaspi view that as a danger to themselves. However, they have made many of their own internal problems with their magical folk through clumsy handling. Things could be much easier there for them if not for their longstanding traditions and prejudices."

"You should go ahead and conquer Arimaspea," Fai stated decisively. "That would make it a nicer place for the magicians as well as the non-magical people. It would stop the raids, too." He knew the border raids were a thorn in Seresu's side, and now that he was identifying with his adopted country he found the attacks almost personally offensive.

"You sound like Taishakuten," the king said with a crooked smile.

"What?" Fai said, startled.

"He's been urging more aggressive action toward Arimaspea for years."

Fai made a face. He didn't like being compared to Lord Taishakuten at all, but really, conquering Arimaspea didn't sound like a bad thing. Lord Taishakuten was a great war hero in Seresu. Whatever mixed feelings some of the other nobles had of him, everyone admired his strength at warfare. If he thought conquering Arimaspea was a good idea, it probably was a good idea.

"Besides," King Ashura continued, "war and conquest carry their own problems. As I said, there is great expense in terms of wealth and people, and the results are not guaranteed. We could lose, you know, Fai."

Fai blinked. That had never even occurred to him.

King Ashura smiled at his reaction. "And even if we won, warfare devastates the land and crops, destroys the infrastructure, and drives away trade. Not just for Arimaspea; parts of Seresu would incur such damage as well. We could take the Arimaspi treasury to recover our costs, of course, but in order to gain any long term profit from the conquest we would have to rebuild all the damaged lands. Also, there would be the rebellious Arimaspi population to quell. Some would welcome us, but the majority would rightly resent us and view us as invaders and oppressors."

"Even the magicians?" Fai asked, surprised by the king's last statement. The idea that the Arimaspi mages would not welcome Seresu as saviors seemed absurd.

"Even them," King Ashura confirmed, leaning forward in his chair and resting his elbows on his knees. "Some would welcome us, but most would be...difficult. They know no other way of living. Most people resist change, especially violent change. Even slaves often fear a change in their status, no matter that it might be for the better. Would you accept a conqueror without complaint?"

Remembering Valeria, Fai rather thought he might under the right circumstances, but he didn't say that. He recalled the messenger who fell into the pit. The man had carried a plea for foreign armies to invade and save the Valerian people from their own ruler and those loyalists who had done his bidding. Sometimes people wanted to be conquered.

"In any case," King Ashura continued, "for now it is not worth it. We have a non-aggression treaty with Arimaspea, and I will not be the first to break it. The raiders are nothing. Border raids are a longstanding annoyance in the northern countries. They are not a cause to change policy, even if we do suspect ulterior motives. Nothing can be proven as of yet."

Fai frowned disapprovingly. The discussion had all but shattered his fantasies about being a great war hero. It also made him wonder if Valeria could have been saved by anyone, even if the messenger had passed on the missive successfully and the requested foreign armies had invaded with good intentions. Maybe the same was true for Arimaspea. Maybe their mages didn't want to be saved like that. It all depressed him. "You don't make any of it sound very good at all. I thought great warriors were supposed to be heroic."

"I see I've read you too many adventure tales," King Ashura teased him.

Fai liked those adventure tales, and still rather wanted to believe in them. "I thought kings were supposed to fight wars and conquer other countries."

"In our past, it wasn't uncommon," the king cautiously allowed. "In fact, according to the old legends, that is how Seresu came to exist so long ago." He sat up straight and shrugged again. "But those days are long over. You are very young yet and still see these things with the eyes of your youth. You'll understand better when you are older." He stopped, and a shadow passed across his face.

"You have to understand, Fai," King Ashura said, suddenly looking sad and remote, "I truly have no wish to expand our borders and increase the number of people under my sway. In fact, it is the very last thing I want. My only desire now is to keep all of my own people..." He faltered, flicking his eyes to Fai before shifting them away again. "...and my country...as peaceful and contented as is possible for as long as I can. It's the least I can do, until...until it can't last any longer."

The king's voice had gotten very soft, and Fai edged in a little closer to the great chair. The sudden change in tone disturbed him. He hated seeing the king get so sad. "Why couldn't it last?" Fai asked hesitantly.

The king shook his head, looking even more somber. "Nothing lasts forever, Fai."

He sounded so terribly sorrowful to Fai, and somehow even a little guilty. Fai wondered if King Ashura felt bad because he couldn't keep everyone happy all the time. That was a king's responsibility, Fai thought. It was good that King Ashura took his responsibilities seriously. It was just too bad that it made him unhappy, and that he didn't see that conquering Arimaspea might be a good idea. Fai thought it would be a good thing for King Ashura to rule Arimaspea, too. Then there wouldn't be any more border troubles, and the mages there could have better lives. Besides, why wouldn't a king want to have more land and more subjects? It seemed very strange to him. Even in Valeria, more of those things had always been considered better.

King Ashura stood up and held out a hand. "Enough of this. Fai, would you like to ride out and see some of the lands surrounding the castle?"

Fai nodded enthusiastically. That sounded a lot better than listening King Ashura's depressing worries and discouraging lectures. He wished the king were happier and less worried about the future. So what if nothing lasted forever? As long as Seresu lived everything would be fine. Fai couldn't even begin to imagine what King Ashura was worrying about. It wasn't like the whole country would die or disappear or anything.

But that had happened to Valeria, Fai recalled with a twinge of old misery. The land had survived, but all the people had died. Their own ruler had killed them all—and Fai still believed it had been his fault, the result of the misfortune he had shared with his brother.

Fai wasn't going to let that happen to Seresu. He didn't have to worry about King Ashura acting like the Valerian ruler, but the problem of Arimaspea remained. Fai wanted to protect Seresu. He wanted to grow up and become a great war leader more than ever, so he could defend the country against anything bad or dangerous. He would really study very hard at his lessons, and practice magic and fighting until he was the best in the world, until he could beat anybody who challenged him.

And maybe, while riding around Clissin, he would pretend that he was going off to lead his army to conquer Arimaspea for King Ashura.


	48. Chapter 48

The court stayed at Clissin for the week. Ashura spent some time with Lord Agmundr and the castle stewards and bailiffs, checking on the books and the state of the property, but Clissin was well managed and didn't require much oversight. He only put minimal effort into the ordinary kingdom business that always followed him everywhere, choosing instead to show Fai the castle and take him riding around the grounds, the farms, and the local forest.

Ashura had always been fond of Clissin. Of all the royal estates, it was the one that most looked like it belonged in a storybook, with its graceful towers and turrets and shining whitewashed walls. The castle was practically tailored to appeal to a child. That was why, out of all the properties at his disposal, Ashura had given Clissin to Fai. He had hoped it would capture Fai's imagination, as it had his own when he'd been a boy.

In that, it appeared he had been successful. Fai was enchanted by Clissin.

It was a pleasant, restful way to pass the days. The weather was fine and dry, perfect for exploring the countryside. Fai wanted to see every acre, every stream, every hill and tree—even every bird and hare, it seemed. The child still hadn't smiled, but his spirit seemed lighter, and he raced from place to place, looking at anything even remotely interesting that he encountered. He found a great many mundane things interesting. Ashura supposed Fai had never had this kind of experience before.

It was really quite delightful to watch. Ashura reflected that he might not have heard Fai's first words or guided his first, tottering baby steps, but at least he had this.

One afternoon, Fai lost his latest loose tooth and presented it to Ashura with glowing pride. Ashura preserved it in crystal and promised to enshrine it with the other two just as soon as they returned home.

There were several beautiful, clear nights, so he let Fai stay up late, despite the long length of the summer days and the lack of true darkness, and taught him a little about stargazing. Astronomy and astrology were a part of all magicians' educations, and although Fai was somewhat young for any serious lessons, he seemed to enjoy it. Ashura pointed out the most obvious and easily identified constellations in the deep blue sky. He talked about the wandering stars, and how the positions of the sun, moon, and stars were used to determine the passage of time and the seasons. He spoke of how such things helped the people decide the best times for preparing the land, planting the crops, and harvesting them. Once a brilliant meteor soundlessly flashed by in a long arc and dissolved into a lovely flurry of glittering sparkles.

The moon rose early those nights, a slender, glowing sickle waxing amid the gem-bright stars. Fai demonstrated a particular and immediate fascination for the crescent moon. "Oh," he said, "I love the moon. It's so perfect just like that. I wish I could touch it and keep it." He couldn't take his eyes off it.

Ashura made a light reply and let Fai indulge himself with moon-gazing. After the child fell asleep, Ashura carried him inside and put him to bed. With sadness, Ashura gazed at Fai's peaceful face and recalled how crescent moons had been the major decorative theme at the Witch of Dimensions' abode. Although the dark sorcerer had done his best to own Fai's body and soul, Fai's affinity for the crescent moon seemed a clear sign that he instead would one day belong to the Witch. Or rather, he would if he survived both Ashura's impending decision, and also whatever plans the sorcerer intended for him. Fai's affinity for the crescent moon and its probable meaning left Ashura even more conflicted than he had been before.

What would be, would be. For once, he would not permit himself to dwell on future horrors. He took refuge in Fai's enthusiasm and obvious appreciation for all Clissin had to offer, and deliberately did not allow himself to think of anything beyond enjoying the present.

The idyll was far too short. Soon, they said their farewells to Clissin and its people, and were back on the road, heading for the Southlands.

After years of practice, Ashura could assess the state of the roads, properties, and countryside with half a mind. So he passed the time in conversation, and spent some of the journey discussing the kingdom with Fai. There was no reason Fai should not continue his lessons about Seresu, even unknowingly while viewing the scenery on horseback.

They rode three abreast, with Fai in between Ashura and Kendappa. They talked about the geography, especially of the regions they passed through, and also about how the country was organized and governed. Since they were going to the Southlands, Ashura focused on the situation of the border lords.

"Their leaders are among the greatest magnates in the country," he told Fai, "with large armies and power. The lesser border lords swear fealty to the greater who rule over them. The two strongest overlords, Lord Taishakuten and Lord Ilmarinen, have vast discretion over the exercise of their power and are almost like kings in their own territories."

"I remember who Lord Ilmarinen is. He's Lord Vainamoinen's older brother, right?" Fai said. "My tutor said he's the overlord of Pohjola."

"Yes," Ashura said. He noticed how Fai avoided mention of Lord Taishakuten, and hoped the time in the Southlands wouldn't be too hard on the boy. Perhaps Fai would become accustomed to Taishakuten, and lose some of his aversion to the warlord.

Then again, perhaps Fai was simply tired of hearing about the Southlands. It had been the main topic for much of the time, being the destination of the trip. Maybe Fai just wanted to hear about a different territory for a change. Ashura conceded that some variety might be good and allowed the drift in the conversation. "Vainamoinen's family rules the eastern border lands that abut the kingdom of Lintukoto."

"They have interesting names. They sound almost musical."

"That is because the lords of Pohjola maintain intimate connections with Lintukoto. Vainamoinen's family has intermarried with the nobility and lesser royalty of Lintukoto for centuries. Many of their names reflect their Lintukotoan origin. In fact, my late wife, Queen Luonnotar, was a princess of Lintukoto and a distant cousin of Vainamoinen's."

Ashura heard Kendappa draw a startled breath. When he turned to look at her, he saw that she was gaping at him with an almost comical expression of shock.

"Ashura?" she said softly, clenching her hands on her mount's reins.

He gave her a tiny smile. "It's all right, Kendappa."

She blinked but kept silent.

Ashura knew very well what had surprised her. But since Fai had come to Seresu, things had changed. He wasn't sure exactly when; the shift in his attitudes and emotions had been so gradual that he hadn't noticed until now. The memory of the tragic way his wife and children had died still hurt, and he still felt their absence, but the pain was no longer so keen and unbearable that he couldn't even think or speak of it. He could remember the joy of his time with Luonnotar without being overwhelmed by the pain of loss.

Fai didn't look surprised to hear about Luonnotar, although his expression bore unmistakable signs of wariness. Someone had probably told him the basics, and warned him to never speak of the late queen. Wise advice, Ashura thought, although now it seemed unnecessary. Somehow, this miracle child had healed that old, bitter wound in his heart. He gazed at Fai with mute gratitude.

Those big blue eyes stared back at him. Fai looked much the same as he had during Ashura's dream of killing him on the glacier, his precious little face so open and trusting. It would have to be soon... The latest wound in Ashura's heart gaped a little wider, raw and bleeding. How could he murder his son? How could he even consider it? It was too much to ask, even to save the world.

Yet he knew himself to be capable of it. If such was his decision, when the proper time came he would strangle his own heart and thrust a sword through Fai's without hesitation.

Moisture filmed his vision, and he blinked rapidly to clear it away.

"Your Majesty?" Fai said.

Ashura drew a deep breath. He didn't want to think of that for a while, not during the journey to the Southlands, but that nightmare simply would not leave him be. He pushed it away and offered Fai a faint smile.

"I'm sorry, Fai. I was just distracted by memories for a moment."

"You mean about..." the boy's voice trailed away, and he looked nervous.

"It's all right to talk about her, Fai." Ashura could feel Kendappa's attention fix on him intently, but he ignored her. "Has anyone told you how I met her?"

Fai shook his head. "Did you pick her from a list, like that list Lady Kendappa keeps trying to make you look at?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Ashura saw Kendappa stiffen indignantly. He grinned. To Fai he said, "It wasn't the same at all. A royal marriage is more a contract between countries or high noble houses than a simple union between two people. This time I have been provided with a list and not simply ordered to marry because I'm the king. Everyone has to at least pretend to humor my odd whims and crotchets." He flashed a toothy smile at Kendappa, who rolled her eyes. "But back then, I was barely twenty years old. I was still only the heir and had to do as I was told," he said with small chuckle, "and so Luonnotar was the only choice offered to me. My father and his council were greatly desirous of stronger ties with Lintukoto, and resolved to make a new blood bond with Lintukoto's ruling house. However, being told to get married to someone you've never even met before... Well, even then I knew my duty, but that didn't make it a comfortable situation."

"That means he was about as cooperative back then as he is now," Kendappa put in sourly. She had apparently gotten over her shock and regained her usual tart personality.

Confused, Fai said, "But you married her."

Ashura couldn't help but smile reminiscently. "Yes. But at first, I was a bit..." He hesitated, seeking the right choice of word. "Cautious," he finally said.

"Make that obstinate, bad tempered, sulky, and insufferable," Kendappa said, undermining his efforts at diplomacy. "He was impossible to live with, until..." Her eyes widened. "Oh, Ashura, you're not really going to tell him this story, are you? You'll just give him ideas for mischief, you know." But the corners of her mouth quirked.

Ashura cocked a brow at her. Personally, he thought that Fai needed more mischief in his life. The child was far too young to be so serious about everything. And if...if the worst came about... Ashura didn't let himself finish that thought, but he could never entirely escape the knowledge that soon he would have to choose a future. However, no matter what choice Ashura made, he was determined that Fai should have as much happiness in his young life as possible. And, in hindsight, it was an amusing story.

Fai's ravenous curiosity was out in full force. "So what happened?"

"Well, I was shown images of her, of course," Ashura said, "and told some rather idealized accounts of her. The envoys and ambassadors spoke only of her beauty, her sweet nature, her virtue and dedication to duty, and how she'd one day make such a perfect queen. In plain words, they made her sound deadly dull. I positively dreaded being bound forever to such a tiresome paragon and wanted to escape the marriage, but of course that was impossible. When it finally occurred to me that everyone was probably only gilding the lily, as it were, I decided to go see what she was like for myself."

He heard Kendappa, who already knew the whole story, utter an amused snort. "You were lucky you came out of that encounter relatively unscathed," she said.

"Luonnotar always did have a temper," Ashura acknowledged.

"You got exactly what you deserved."

"How unkind of you, cousin," he replied with twinkling eyes. To Fai, he said, "As you have probably guessed, my late wife and Kendappa got along swimmingly."

Fai's eyes swiveled from Ashura to Kendappa and back again. "Did you get in trouble with her?"

"With Luonnotar? In a manner of speaking, but only because I surprised her. Naturally, I had to keep my plans secret. No one would have ever allowed an unauthorized, unchaperoned visit like that between us. I slipped away from the castle, used magic to find her, and teleported to her location. It was all quite spontaneous."

"Spontaneous?" Kendappa snorted again. "You were careless. It was most fortunate that she wasn't in her bedchamber at the time, or you might have found yourself minus your head. By all accounts, her family had no sense of humor about that sort of thing."

Ashura smiled ruefully and continued, "Luonnotar had secluded herself in a private garden. It was high summer, and Lintukoto is somewhat warmer than Seresu, so it was a very pretty little place. But she wasn't exactly expecting company, and she had excellent reflexes." He paused for effect, then said, "Her attack was quite impressive."

"Attack?" Fai breathed.

"The royal family of Lintukoto produces excellent mages, just like in Seresu," Ashura said. "Her blast might well have done serious damage had I not instinctively put up a defensive shield. Fortunately, I have quick reflexes as well."

"You left out the part about how you got knocked down into a thorny gooseberry bush," Kendappa put in helpfully.

"Fai doesn't need to hear about that."

Fai, on the other hand, looked highly interested in hearing about that.

Ashura didn't give him a chance to ask any embarrassing questions. "As it turned out," he said, "she'd been given a rather idealized and boring account of me, as well. She'd also seen a picture of me, so she did recognize who I was when the dust settled."

"She got a good, leisurely look at him while he was struggling with the gooseberry bush," Kendappa told a wide-eyed and fascinated Fai. "That's when she realized who had just waylaid her. She thought it was pretty funny. She told me she couldn't stop laughing for a sennight."

"At any rate," Ashura said loudly over his cousin's chortling, "because of that unorthodox meeting, we both concluded that neither of us was quite so boring and hidebound as we had been led to believe, and we ultimately decided that we should suit, after all." He didn't add that he'd sulked while Luonnotar had laughed. He'd gotten over his pique fairly quickly, and through some miracle hadn't offended her by the bad temper his wounded pride had generated.

"Love at first blow, as it were," Kendappa snickered.

"We met secretly a few more times before the formal contract was signed and the betrothal announced. We had quite a difficult time pretending we'd never laid eyes on one another when she was brought to Seresu and we were formally wed. I believe only Kendappa knew the truth at the time. Even Tendulkar didn't know about it for several months." He looked over at his cousin. "You never did tell me how you originally found out about it. Luonnotar said she didn't tell you until after the wedding."

"I never reveal my sources or methods, Your Majesty," she replied demurely with lowered eyes. Her modest demeanor conflicted with her knowing grin. "You know that."

To Fai, Ashura said, "Kendappa always knows everything. There's little point in trying to keep secrets from her, especially embarrassing ones." Not that her knowledge in that case was really a great mystery. Kendappa had tended his cuts and scratches from that cursed gooseberry bush and listened to his complaints about the damage. He hadn't told her where he'd found a gooseberry bush with which to wrestle. Instead he had covered himself by telling her only that he'd gone wandering again and swearing her to secrecy. Kendappa had a quick mind. She had undoubtedly put all the pieces together and come up with the correct answer.

But now he had secrets that she would never learn, not until it was too late...

"That sounded fun, but it was a very strange way to get married," Fai said, carefully polite. "It doesn't seem fair that you weren't supposed to even meet her first."

Ashura had rather hoped that Fai might have at least yielded a tiny smile in response to the ridiculous story, but in that desire he was disappointed as always. Still, Fai did look... Well, not cheerful, but his expression had lightened in that indescribable way it often did when he was happy.

"Royal marriages are usually like that, Fai," he said. "What I did was, well, not exactly proper." He heard Kendappa snort again.

"Not that Luonnotar minded," his cousin said.

"No," Ashura said. "She was rather relieved by the whole thing. She'd been envisioning a stern, humorless prince who was completely obsessed with protocol and law. She relaxed a great deal once she stopped laughing at me."

"I wish I could have met Queen Luonnotar," Fai said next. "She sounds interesting."

Ashura's own mood sank a little as he considered the innocent words. Had Luonnotar lived, how different would things be now? Would he have still been condemned to future madness, and Seresu to destruction? Would Fai have stayed imprisoned forever in that pit in Valeria, or would Ashura still have been driven to find Fai to fulfill his own blood-drenched destiny and a sadistic sorcerer's dark plans? Had everything been foreordained, an unchangeable fate in which there were no real choices, only inevitable events and outcomes?

He feared he knew the answers to those questions. He had once thought it a mercy that Luonnotar and his sons had died. That had not changed. He was forced to admit that he still believed their deaths a mercy for them all.

"Are you going to pick a wife for me someday?" Fai asked.

Ashura started a little at that unexpected question, and his mount shied slightly when he involuntarily yanked the reins. Kendappa choked back a giggle. He ignored her, took a moment to calm the poor beast, then answered Fai honestly, "I hadn't thought about it."

There didn't seem to be any point to even considering the idea, no matter which future he chose.

"If you do, please choose someone nice," Fai requested. "Choose someone fun, too, like your wife."

"You're still very young, Fai," Ashura said. "You needn't concern yourself about such things yet."

"But if you do?" Fai persisted.

"I promise you, Fai, I won't ever select a wife for you without consulting you first." Ashura could make that particular promise with perfect honesty and sincerity. He smiled at his son, and inwardly mourned that, regardless of what events transpired in the future, he would never meet Fai's children.


	49. Chapter 49

At Castle Vasara, the hereditary seat of the Lords of the Southlands, a storm of activity raged as the great keep prepared for the royal visit. Servants rushed purposefully to and fro, cleaning and readying the best quarters in the castle with every luxury and necessity available. Foodstuffs had been gathered, animals penned and some slaughtered to prepare for the welcoming feast. The kitchens hummed constantly.

The soldiers were not exempt from the preparations. In the borderland with Arimaspea, discipline was well maintained and training never neglected. Weapons and armor were always kept clean and in good repair, but now all was made as perfect as possible. Even steel chain mail was brushed and polished until it gleamed like bright silver.

Lord Taishakuten strode through his domain, inspecting what was done for flaws, but all was in order. This was hardly the first time Castle Vasara had entertained the king, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. A royal progress to the Southlands occurred at least once a year, and frequently more often. The region was too important to Seresu to ever be neglected by the country's rulers.

He stopped in the Great Hall. As one of the greatest lords in the kingdom, he maintained his own court, with his vassals and lesser nobility in attendance. They now were also busy preparing, managing those tasks that the common-born servants were unfit to handle. Every person in the castle had their duties and performed them seamlessly.

There really wasn't much for him to do. He seemed superfluous.

Taishakuten hated being superfluous.

"My lord!" a young man's voice called.

Taishakuten turned to face his senior wizard, Master Ateas, who was approaching him swiftly.

"My lord, I have been in contact with the king's wizard, Lord Syed."

Wizards were most useful and convenient tools, Taishakuten mused. Using them, one could obtain news almost instantly, rather than having to wait for a messenger to carry it across the distance on horseback. And Ateas, despite his common birth and his relatively young age of barely twenty-eight years, was extremely talented at his art.

"The royal cortege has passed Thunderer's Crag," Ateas reported. "They should arrive within the hour."

"They're making good time," Taishakuten commented. It was yet early afternoon. The morning reports had indicated that the cortege was still some fifteen miles out, but now they were almost to Vasara.

He turned to one of his retainers. "We will ride out to greet the king and provide escort. Ready a troop immediately." He thought briefly about taking more men to emphasize his consequence, but too many might appear threatening rather than merely impressive. It was never a good idea to threaten royalty. He would only take enough to honor the king, display his own strength, and keep trouble at bay.

Not that Taishakuten believed there would be any trouble. His own people were, in general, good, law abiding folk. Certainly there was a criminal element, but those miscreants didn't dare flaunt their activities openly. And while the Southlands were often plagued by the raiders from the south, the Arimaspi had never gotten past Taishakuten's outer defenses and encroached this far inside the territory. Also, aside from one notable raid during deep winter and a few minor, easily quelled skirmishes, the border had been quiet this year. Ashura always traveled with a well-armed troop, and there wasn't any real possibility of danger, but taking a decent honor guard to meet and escort the king would serve well for showing Taishakuten's loyalty and regard.

He looked at Ateas. "You'll accompany me. Make ready."

The retainer and the wizard both bowed and hurried off to accomplish their respective tasks.

Yes, wizards were most useful tools, Taishakuten thought as he watched Ateas depart. Through Ateas's communications with the court wizard Lord Syed D Greenstone, Taishakuten had obtained very accurate reports about Ashura's movements and had been able to plan accordingly. He also had details of the size of Ashura's party, an accounting of which nobles had accompanied the king, and how many servants, soldiers, and animals would need to be housed and fed. Nothing had been left to chance.

Taishakuten had expected a large part of the royal court to accompany the king, but he was somewhat surprised that Ashura had elected to bring his bastard son along. The boy was very young, and the long journey would have been quite arduous for him. Taishakuten thought that was probably why the trip had taken so much longer than usual. Ateas had confirmed that piece of speculation with Lord Syed, and also that the royal cortege had stopped for a week at one of the properties Ashura had settled on his whelp.

Taishakuten knew Fai was intimidated by him. That didn't trouble him. Young children were either frightened of him or fascinated by him—there didn't seem to be any middle ground. The fear made sense; the fascination, though, bewildered him, but he told himself that children weren't often very sensible.

A fair number of adults also felt some discomfiture with him even as they admired and fawned over him. He encouraged the varied forms of awe that he engendered in so many. His reputation was important to his future plans. His power was significant, and rested in his strength and success as a warlord, his large army, and his vast landholdings and wealth. Despite all that, he nurtured ambitions to gain even more. He planned to sit on the Council of Nobles, and even one day replace Lord Vainamoinen as its leader, and so he did all he could to enhance his reputation as an indomitable force in Seresu.

His senior wizard also had great ambitions. Ateas coveted the honor of the D title, and Taishakuten had resolved to help him achieve it even though it meant losing Vasara's best wizard. The D-titled wizards were rare, and always permanently attached to the royal court.

However, Ateas was devoted to Taishakuten, and would become more so if Taishakuten promoted his interests. Ateas had a good chance of succeeding in his goals, through the combination of his own growing renown as a war wizard and Taishakuten's sponsorship. Until Taishakuten won a place among the king's closest counselors, it would be a good thing to have a loyal and trustworthy pair of eyes and ears at Luval. Ashura and his advisors were reliable in general, but Taishakuten liked to gain information through his own sources as well as through the official channels.

Additionally, Taishakuten didn't trust the Lord Wizard Suhail D Bhagat; the man was tied too closely to the Völur. It seemed likely that he was their spy at the royal court, as Taishakuten hoped Ateas would one day be his. Taishakuten had always disliked and distrusted the Völur. No one, not even the king, could control them, and they didn't even pretend to humor Taishakuten when he made demands of them.

The kingdom's main factions, the nobility, the magicians, and the religious orders, of which the Völur were the most prominent, maintained a complex, balanced dance of power. It was fortunate, Taishakuten thought, that the magicians of Seresu were content with the status quo. Although they were a tiny minority, they could easily conquer the country if they chose to unite in a common purpose.

Then he snorted. Wizards already controlled the country. Seresu was ruled by a family of wizards. That was the real reason the magicians all accepted the present state of affairs. Their position was assured.

Fortunately, the rulers were traditionally trained from birth not to favor their own kind over the ordinary, non-magical citizens, at least not in obvious ways. The purpose was primarily enlightened self interest, to prevent dissatisfaction in the populace which could lead to insurrection, but overall the Royal House of Vanir did well by Seresu. Whatever their political or personal reasons, they maintained peace and stability within the country's borders, and non-magical noblemen like Taishakuten were trusted to keep and even increase their power, wealth, and consequence.

A servant came to inform him that the escort troop was ready, and Taishakuten strode out to the bailey where his men had formed up. He was displeased to discover that the looming clouds of the morning now shed an annoying, drizzling rain. A pity that no wizard could control the weather. It was rumored that the king could sometimes influence it, but only marginally. Taishakuten wasn't sure if he believed that rumor or not. Surely if Ashura could do anything at all about the weather, he'd make the country warmer.

Of course, Taishakuten thought as he waited beneath the eave of an outbuilding for his mount to be brought to him, there were a great many rumors about the king this year. Such as the one about Fai being Ashura's bastard son. Taishakuten accepted that without question, and he knew he wasn't the only member of the nobility who did so. It explained perfectly the king's otherwise inexplicable fondness for his stray, and the blatant favoritism shown. He did, however, put far less trust in the rumor that Ashura planned to make Fai his heir. The king had made plain at Sunbirth that it wasn't true. The succession was well documented, and it would have been the height of stupidity to expose the vulnerable young child to the kind of danger and intrigue that such a tumultuous change would engender. Taishakuten knew that the king was definitely not stupid.

Although, upon consideration, there was no guarantee about what might happen when Fai was older and able to defend himself. Taishakuten recalled that Ateas had once said that Fai's magical potential was terrifying. Ashura often considered the long future and planned accordingly. There was historical precedent, as well. He wouldn't be the first king to legitimize a favorite but illegitimate son and make him the heir. Ashura might very well secretly intend to change the succession once Fai was of age and wielded his full powers.

Politically speaking, it would be wise to befriend young Lord Fai, Taishakuten thought, or at least do something to reduce the child's fear of him.

Then there was the other rumor, the truly dangerous one that bordered on treason. It was repeated only in the softest, most surreptitious of whispers, and claimed that Ashura had suffered some kind of breakdown during deep winter, and had even attempted suicide. Fractured and incomplete, the story bore unmistakable signs that someone—probably the king's advisors—had tried to smother it. Taishakuten took note of it, but after meeting with the king at Sunbirth he didn't believe it for an instant and put it down to maliciousness on the part of some disgruntled courtiers. Ashura's conversation and behavior had been perfectly normal at the spring festival, aside from his strange encounter with the Völur's magic at the King's Sacrifice. That incident Taishakuten also dismissed, as everyone present at the rite had been overcome by that magic, even him—and he prided himself on possessing an unconquerable will. Ateas had informed him that too many of the sacred sisterhood had attended and generated an immense force of magic that even they hadn't been able to control. Even the D-titled wizards, Ateas had said, had all fallen victim to the Völur's wild, primal spells.

Whatever the reason, it had been the most effective sacrifice in living memory. Already the crops showed signs of being the most abundant in generations. An extraordinarily rich new vein of gold had been discovered at the Borean mine, the herds were increasing with fat, happy animals, and the merchants and tradesmen were doing excellent business. Taishakuten's own coffers were swelling with the increased rents and tax revenues, along with increases in the output of his properties and profits from his business ventures. The growing plenty was not limited to the Southlands: the entire country's prosperity burgeoned everywhere this year.

It seemed a pity that the unusual circumstances of the King's Sacrifice were unlikely to be repeated. He wondered if Ashura could be talked into trying the experiment again.

Taishakuten grinned as he imagined Ashura's probable reaction to that suggestion. The king had been rather displeased about the whole thing. Still, the benefits were well worth the risk of incurring a little royal ire. As king, it was Ashura's sacred duty to ensure Seresu's prosperity, after all...

Ultimately, Taishakuten could not believe that such beneficial results could have arisen from the blood connection of the land to a mentally damaged king. The ancient folk belief, that the king and the land were one, was rooted deep in the soul of the country. Any illness or death wish in Ashura would surely have been imbued into the land along with his blood, and instead of experiencing increased fertility, wealth, and abundance, Seresu would now be declining into chaos, destitution, and eventual destruction. That story about Ashura having a breakdown could not contain any truth at all.

Now that Taishakuten thought seriously on it, the rumor had circulated around the time that Ashura had acquired Fai. Taishakuten wondered if the rumor was related to that curious event. Perhaps the story of mental instability had been put about by dissatisfied courtiers who were not pleased with the king's fondness for his new pet. Perhaps they merely felt envious or neglected due to the way Ashura favored Fai, and the rumor was a petty form of complaint and revenge. If that were the case, they were brave men and women, foolishly so. Taishakuten would have had them put to death had they spread such vile tales about him. Ashura and his advisors were far too lenient.

It was likely, Taishakuten thought, that Vainamoinen and the other councilors had not informed their king of that particular fabrication and had attempted to squelch it on their own. They had not been completely successful in that endeavor, as Taishakuten's own knowledge of it attested, but the rumor was fragmented enough that its veracity was even more doubtful and unreliable than the usual breed of lies that circulated about the Royal House of Vanir.

It wasn't unusual for rumors to swirl around the royal family, but this year's crop was strangely pernicious. It seemed an odd state of affairs, especially in light of the country's flourishing prosperity. However, Taishakuten thought he could put the rumors to good use. His own show of disregard for them would provide a good example to the lesser nobility and gentry, and his excellent behavior was likely to be noticed by the king's advisors. Additional demonstrations of unwavering commitment and support to the royal house in the face of this minor but unpleasant adversity should also help to gain the king's favor.

Incrementally, Taishakuten's influence with the king would grow. It might take some time, but Taishakuten was patient and determined, and willing to constantly revise his long term plans as necessary to achieve the best results. He always got what he wanted, sooner or later.

A groom brought up Taishakuten's blood bay stallion, fully caparisoned and with his shining coat immaculately curried. Taishakuten vaulted into the saddle and rode to the head of his troop.

It was a miserable, wet ride out to meet the king's party. Halfway there, the dark clouds opened up and near drowned Taishakuten and his men in a raging downpour. This only lasted a few minutes before lightening back to mere rain. Ateas put a magical shield over the troop to protect them from the sky's deluge, but of course that didn't stop the mud and filthy water thrown up by the horses' hooves from bespattering the riders.

So much for making a grand impression, Taishakuten groused mentally.

He felt much better when the royal cortege came into view, and he realized that he had neglected to take into account that bad weather had no respect for rank and high station. A number of magicians rode with the king and shielded his party from the rain as Ateas did Taishakuten's men, but nothing, it seemed, could defeat the thick mud of the road. Most of the courtiers, servants, and soldiers were liberally splattered and, if not soaked, at least well dampened by the moist air.

It was petty of him, Taishakuten knew, to be pleased that the highest-bred nobility fared no better than he did in the summer rainstorm. He indulged himself in the pettiness, although he took pains to hide his satisfaction. It would do him no good in the eyes of the powerful inner circle he hoped to one day join in ruling the kingdom.

Taishakuten brought his troop to a halt. He started to signal them to dismount and kneel, when an imperious voice carried through the falling rain: "Wait."

Taishakuten frowned, and gestured to his men to stay on their horses.

The king himself rode forward, accompanied by two of his captains.

Even mud-stained and travel-worn, the king was arresting. Taishakuten was struck anew by the man's personal charisma, his dark good looks, and those strange, light brown eyes that appeared to glow when the light hit them at just the right angle.

He repressed a smile at his own foolishness and kept his expression neutral. Ashura's presence always affected him. He should be accustomed by now, but for some reason he was always dazzled briefly whenever he first encountered the king after a period of separation. He bowed his head and lowered his gaze respectfully, while his ever-active mind schemed.

As he had done many times before, he considered that there were many ways to gain power and influence, and some were quite pleasurable. If only King Ashura were so inclined. However, Taishakuten had never seen any indication that the king appreciated the more novel diversions available. Quite the opposite, in fact, to judge by the string of mistresses Ashura had taken over the years since his wife had died.

A pity, but Taishakuten was wise enough to leave well enough alone. He knew very well that his obsession with Ashura was dangerous. If it became known, it could easily derail his own ambitions, or even prove fatal. However frustrating he found the situation, he acknowledged that it was probably safest that Ashura was always so oblivious. And there were more conventional means to develop closer connections to Seresu's king.

He knew Ashura no longer dallied with Lady Eliina, and at present had no other mistress. The timing was a stroke of good luck. Two of Taishakuten's cousins were attractive young women of suitable age, and one was even in residence with his own court at Vasara. He would send for the other as soon as possible. Both were ambitious and quick-witted—excellent family traits. They would recognize the advantages of a royal liaison and be sure to exert themselves to catch the king's eye. Ashura, while indulgent to his mistresses, wasn't exactly famous for bestowing favors on their relatives, but such a dalliance would provide an unexceptional reason for Taishakuten to spend more time at Luval. He was the head of his family and expected to look out for their interests, after all. A brief smile ghosted across his handsome face.

"Your Majesty," he said formally when the king came close enough to hear him. He kept his head and gaze lowered. The rainfall increased again. Taishakuten was grateful that Ateas's shield still protected him from the rain.

"My lord," King Ashura replied. "In light of the inclement weather, I think we can dispense with the formalities until we are under a decent roof. We are all tired, and I, at least, would appreciate the opportunity to dry out."

"Of course, Your Majesty." Taishakuten lifted his head and really looked at the king. Despite being damp and mud spattered, Ashura didn't look like he objected all that much to the wet weather. His expression was as damnably serene as always, but something in his eyes hinted that he actually liked sitting on horseback in the pouring rain.

Luval Castle, Taishakuten recalled forcefully, was located in the Riphean Mountains of the north, far above the trees and always frozen, barren, and blanketed in snow. Rain and relative warmth were luxuries to be found only in the lowlands and the southern parts of the country. Even in the Southlands, the warmer weather only held for a bare handful of months, the brief growing season a pleasant respite from the harsh cold that gripped the land the rest of the year. But in Luval, winter never ended. That was the price of ultimate power in Seresu.

Taishakuten still wanted to join the country's ruling elite, even if it meant spending the better part of his life in eternal ice.


	50. Chapter 50

"That's correct, Fai...yes...hold it like this. Right hand forward, right foot forward. Keep the staff guarding your body, and tilt it up so it points at your opponent's eyes or throat." Ashura demonstrated the elementary stance and guard position with his own staff. Fai frowned in concentration and imitated him.

The staff was Fai's first weapon. His tutors had drilled him on fundamentals back in Luval once the weather had cleared enough, but Ashura wanted some playtime with his son. The holiday in the Southlands—for, despite its political purpose, Ashura had chosen to regard the visit as such, and kept kingdom business to a minimum—provided the perfect opportunity. The weather was warmer and, after that first day, had dried out. Like all strongholds in the Southlands, Castle Vasara had excellent training facilities, due to the need for strong armies on the border with Arimaspea.

So Ashura had taken Fai out to an open practice field, handed him a short child's staff and picked up a full-length one for himself, and begun to walk him through some basic forms. Fai had no power or even much control yet, and wouldn't for a few years, but his focus and hand-eye coordination were exceptional. He didn't often drop the weapon or smack himself with it as frequently as most beginners, although it did happen on occasion. Of course, once Fai started learning the more complex movements and spins, and had to start speeding everything up, it would be a different story. With rueful amusement, Ashura remembered all the times he had managed to hit himself in the head. The staff could be quite a contrary weapon if the wielder worked against its movements, rather than with it, and it often "got away" from students. In that respect it was not unlike magic.

"Excellent," Ashura said. "Now, to ward off a center attack from your opponent's right, bring your staff across to your left, like this. It will catch the attacker's weapon and slide it to your side. Not too far, just enough so the attack does not touch you. Then, while your opponent's arms and weapon are crossed over his body, shift forward quickly, right foot front, like so, and thrust your staff at him. His arm will be over his chest, so aim for an open, vulnerable area, like his eye or throat. If you can blind or maim your opponent or crush his windpipe, you have as good as won the fight and need only move in for the finishing blows."

Fai already knew the basic stances and guard positions. He grasped the simple block and strike combination quickly. Ashura ran through it with him ten times, then switched his stance.

"All right, Fai," he said, "it is important to be able to do all techniques equally well on both sides of your body. Now we will do it again, this time starting with the left. Take your stance with your left hand forward, left foot forward."

Fai nodded and frowned even more fiercely. This time he didn't do so well. "It's harder," he said, brows furrowed. Without prompting, he tried again.

"Usually things are easier on the dominant side of the body," Ashura said. "You must drill the weaker side more, until the movements become natural no matter which hand and foot are leading the moves. You never know from which direction your opponent will attack."

He had Fai repeat on the left until it appeared the child moved more comfortably, then judged correctly that Fai had had more than enough of that. He grinned. Perhaps Fai needed an outlet for his frustration with not being perfect.

"Fai, let us practice some actual strikes. Take your right forward stance." When Fai complied, Ashura took a guard position and said, "Now, take a step forward while swinging the end of your staff at my left flank." He deliberately chose a large, easy target for Fai to reach.

Fai froze and stared at him. "But won't I hurt you if I do that?"

"I promise I will block your attack," Ashura said calmly, trying not to smile. Fai's aim, speed, and strength might yet be lacking, but the staff gave even an inexperienced wielder the advantage of leverage. If Ashura missed the block he would definitely be sorry. An expert staff fighter could easily crush bones with the weapon. But Fai was still very slow and cautious. "Attack now, as hard as you can while still maintaining your aim."

Fai stepped and swung, every bit as slowly and cautiously as Ashura had expected. He had plenty of time to shift back a step on a slight diagonal and move his own staff to block the timid strike. The resounding clack of wood hitting wood, and the jarring Fai felt in his arms, made the child drop back with a cry of shock.

"Oh," Fai said, looking alarmed. "Are you all right?"

"I am perfectly fine, Fai," Ashura said. "You blow didn't touch me. Try again, this time to my right flank. Use the other end of the staff to strike my opposite side."

Fai held the staff horizontally before him and wobbled it back and forth, getting a feel for the way both ends moved. Then he stepped in, struck, and Ashura blocked.

"Good," Ashura said approvingly. "Now step forward, strike to my left, then step and strike to my right. Do not stop. Keep moving forward to drive me back to the wall."

As Fai practiced, he gained confidence. His steps became surer, his swings stronger, although Ashura had to remind him not to swing wildly and to be sure to maintain his balance and to keep his aim and control true. When they reached the wall, they reversed roles. Ashura struck at Fai, using careful, light taps with barely enough force to allow the child to feel an impact with his staff. He kept his swings painfully slow and gave Fai all the time he needed to shift his position and block the strikes.

They drilled back and forth a number of times, and when Fai started to get clumsy and somewhat hyperactive, Ashura judged that the boy was tired and called a halt.

Fai immediately objected. "I don't want to stop yet. I can keep going." His eyes were a bit too bright and his underdeveloped arm muscles twitched a little, yet he clutched his staff and looked mulish.

"I know you can," Ashura lied to soothe him. "However, after so much exercise it is a good idea to take a break and get something to drink. Aren't you thirsty?"

Fai frowned. "A little, I guess."

"You can practice again with your instructors."

"It was more fun with you. My tutors don't let me spar yet. We only practice forms."

Ashura raised his brows to hear that. "No two person drills? No contact at all?" he asked, to clarify how matters stood.

Fai shook his head. "They don't let me hit anything, and they don't hit my staff like you did, either."

So this was the first time Fai had experienced contact, and that was the cause for his initial hesitancy? Ashura had assumed it was simply because Fai hadn't wanted to hurt him.

Although Ashura wouldn't have described the exercise he and Fai had done as sparring—it had been simple drilling, without the surprises of sparring—Fai needed to learn how light contact of staff against staff felt. Forms were all well and good for perfecting basic technique, but without some practice at actual fighting applications to learn what the moves really meant they were just pretty dances. Granted, Fai was very young and hadn't been learning the staff for very long, but light, non-aggressive drills such as they had performed were perfectly appropriate for his age and experience.

"Your tutors are being overcautious," he said. "I will speak with them."

"Okay." Fai sounded a little disappointed. "I guess this means you won't spar with me again?"

Ashura smiled. "Of course I will. We can do this again tomorrow, if you like."

"Really?"

"Really. Now, come along, Fai."

Ashura reflected that it would be a good idea to spar often with Fai using weapons and magic both, especially when the child developed strength, speed, and skill. The activity would get Fai accustomed to striking at him in a variety of ways and with real power and intent. Perhaps, when the time came, Ashura could engage Fai in a battle, and drive him to use stronger and stronger attacks, maybe even apply a few dirty tricks to provoke him into losing all sense of restraint. And then, when in the heat of battle Fai's attacks became strong enough, lethal enough, perhaps Ashura would "miss" a block...

It would devastate Fai, but better Fai's emotional upset than his utter annihilation. Ashura would keep the ploy in mind, should the deception prove necessary someday. After all, even if he killed Seresu's entire population, he still might not gain enough power to exceed Fai's magical strength and trigger the first curse. In that event, an alternate method to remove that horrific second curse would be required.

Then he blinked, wondering just what mad thoughts were running through his head. He was making plans as though it were the most natural thing in the world to massacre the populace of his entire country, as though Fai would live to adulthood and have a future...as though he wouldn't murder Fai out on some lonely glacier in the northern mountains sometime within the coming year.

Well, maybe he wouldn't. He hadn't decided yet. Or had he?

But if Fai lived, Seresu would die. His people, his whole country—all to save one child. His child. Could he really permit himself to be that selfish? To make the monstrous decision to sacrifice his entire country's population for Fai's sake, even while he was still in his right mind? He had once accepted the inevitability of that horror, but now that he knew there was a choice, a chance to save Seresu, he should put aside his emotional attachments, smother the yearnings of his wayward heart, and embrace the opportunity to safeguard his country's future.

Just the thought of it made him want to cry.

And then, there was that strange, overpowering feeling again, rising in his breast—the sense that Fai's welfare should take precedence over everything else, the overarching conviction that Ashura's only reason for existing was for Fai's sake. With effort, he shoved it away, but as always it remained in the dark, hidden corners of his deepest soul, waiting to overwhelm all sense and force his decisions onto the path that it desired...

Keeping his expression schooled into its usual placidity to mask the rush of confusion and despair, Ashura rested his free hand on Fai's shoulder and turned to head back into the keep. As he did so, he saw that he and Fai had acquired a small audience. Kendappa stood just inside the practice field with Lord Taishakuten. Several soldiers and guards waited behind them. The two nobles were watching approvingly, and everyone gave a small obeisance as he and Fai approached.

"Cousin, my lord Taishakuten," Ashura greeted them.

"Hello, cousin. I see this is where you've been hiding. Not that it matters. There isn't any pressing business for you, and this is an excellent use of your time," Kendappa said with a smile. Before Ashura could form a response to her accusation that he had been truant, she looked to Fai. "You're coming along with the staff, Fai. Do you enjoy it?"

"I do," the child replied. "It's a lot of fun. I got to learn to actually hit today."

"So I observed," she replied, eyes twinkling. "Become strong enough, and maybe you'll be able to knock His Majesty on his—" She broke off, grinned at Ashura, and finished, "Knock His Majesty down."

Fai looked a little startled. "I don't want to knock him down," he said simply.

"You will someday. It is inevitable."

Ashura added smoothly, "All mentors wish their students to exceed them, Fai. Of course I hope you will eventually best me in all things, including staff fighting." And, he reflected, the statement was utterly, excruciatingly, brutally honest.

"Yes, that's what I meant," Kendappa said mendaciously.

Fai looked doubtful.

Ashura glanced over at Taishakuten, who was doing a poor job of concealing his amusement. That lord, Ashura noted, was belted and armed and had one hand resting on his sheathed sword. "Lord Taishakuten, are you here to practice? Fai and I are finished, so the field is yours."

Taishakuten bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty. I came to work on my swordsmanship with one of my captains. We practice often." He straightened. "However, I would be honored if you would consent to be my training partner, assuming you have no other engagements, or are not too tired from your workout." He failed to suppress a tiny quirk of his lips.

Ashura cast a mildly annoyed look at him, but without any real censure. Obviously, the practice session that had worn out Fai had barely served as a warm-up for him, and Taishakuten knew it. In fact, Ashura appreciated the offer. His muscles ached for some real exercise, and his mind ached for a distraction on which it could focus to the exclusion of all other concerns. Taishakuten was a master swordsman, one of the best in the kingdom. Sparring with him would require complete attention and concentration, and would afford Ashura no opportunities to dwell upon future horrors.

"I accept, my lord," Ashura said.

Taishakuten made a gesture, and his captain offered his own sword, hilt first, to the king. Ashura handed his staff over, gripped the sword and moved back out of range of the others. He swung the sword experimentally to get a feel for its weight and balance. It was an excellent weapon, but that was no surprise. Weapons were a primary concern in the Southlands, and an interest that bordered on mania to its ruling warlord.

Fai asked, "Can I stay and watch?" The boy had an uneasy look, a combination of nervousness and excitement.

Ashura recalled that Fai was still intimidated by Taishakuten. He still nursed hopes that Fai's unease would pass soon. Taishakuten was one of the great magnates, and controlled a highly critical territory. Fai really needed to become more comfortable around him, as Ashura and Taishakuten were often required to be in each other's company for a host of political reasons. It was fortunate that Taishakuten didn't take offense at Fai's nerves, but then, he must be well acquainted with that wary reaction—and not just from children. His very presence seemed to inspire it in many who were unaccustomed to him.

Lord Taishakuten said, "I have no objection, Your Majesty. I assume Lord Fai will soon begin learning basic swordplay, so seeing this session should be of interest to him." He looked at Fai and smiled pleasantly. "Isn't that right, Lord Fai?"

Fai blinked and stared at him, but nodded.

"Of course," Ashura agreed. He gestured to one of the guards. "Bring Lord Fai something to drink. He's had a heavy workout." The man bowed and hurried away.

Taishakuten was putting forth great effort to be an accommodating host. Ashura had noticed that Taishakuten was also doing his best to lessen Fai's wariness of him, although not to much effect. Fai remained cautious around him. However, the fact that Taishakuten was bothering at all set Ashura's mind ranging over some interesting possibilities.

Taishakuten was utterly ruthless in combat, and in other matters as well from what Ashura knew of him. The Lord of the Southlands did whatever was required in order to accomplish his goals, without regard for emotional attachments or physical concerns. That quality made him a demon in battle, and when he passed judgment on those who opposed him or the law, his rulings were harsh and swift—sometimes a little too harsh and swift—and he tended to err on the side of severity rather than mercy.

Taishakuten's ability to do what had to be done no matter the cost and yet not permit the consequences eat at his soul was an attitude Ashura thought could serve Fai well in the coming years. Perhaps some small part of that quality could be instilled in Fai. Not too much, though, just enough to toughen him a little. Ashura would hate to see Fai lose his kind heart to that type of callousness. He didn't want to start on that course now, but perhaps something could be done later on when Fai was older, and the basic patterns of his personality and behavior were solidly set in place and could not be influenced for the worse.

He wondered if Fai could get over his fear of Taishakuten, and if so, if Taishakuten could be induced to take Fai for military training when the boy was of the proper age. That way, Fai could see something of real battle, as well.

Ashura's heart quailed a little when he thought of Fai in combat. He imagined a vulnerable child charging heedlessly into the fray, when instead he knew he should picture a competent and well-skilled young adult.

Even so, he really didn't want to think about Fai riding into war.

Ashura would have to think long and hard about whether he really wanted Fai to train with Taishakuten. It would mean tying Taishakuten more closely to the royal court, and that was something that would require careful consideration. He was not blind to Taishakuten's faults: his ambition, his ego, and his rapacious desire for power. It would be dangerous to cultivate a closer association with him, but Ashura might risk it for Fai's sake. When he reached the proper age, Fai would have to train with someone highly ranked and in a position of military authority. All members of the royal family received such training, even the daughters. Taishakuten was eminently suitable for all of Ashura's purposes. Perhaps Fai would learn and internalize some of Taishakuten's attitudes and strengths, so that one day he could endure the act of regicide that Ashura might force him to commit.

Fai was still far too young, but it was worth keeping in mind.

After all, Fai might live that long. Ashura hadn't chosen a future yet...

And then Taishakuten attacked, and it was all Ashura could do to keep from being bested at sword practice from the very first strike.


	51. Chapter 51

Overall, Taishakuten was pleased with how this year's royal visit was progressing. He always played the role of dutiful host to perfection, but now that he actively sought to join the king's inner circle he made an extra effort. The sword practice had been an excellent ploy. King Ashura had seemed to enjoy the exercise and the fact that Taishakuten had not held back. Taishakuten doubted many people would normally be willing to press the king so hard, and Ashura had appeared to appreciate it. Of course, had they finished the match the king would have won. Taishakuten would have made sure of that. Ashura had somehow divined that intent and had called a halt before the match reached that point. He had then publicly acknowledged Taishakuten's most excellent skill right there on the practice field.

Not that all Taishakuten's machinations were unqualified successes. King Ashura had thus far displayed only polite disinterest in Taishakuten's cousin, despite her well-honed and ample charms. That was disappointing. Perhaps the king would appreciate his other cousin better. She was due to arrive in a few days.

In the meantime, Taishakuten made certain that all the entertainments leading up to Midsummer's Eve went smoothly, and that the highborn members of Ashura's entourage were enjoying themselves as they mingled freely with the gentry of Taishakuten's own court.

It was quite late in the evening, although still light outside. It was often difficult to sleep during summer, especially near midsummer when the sun didn't set until very late and the sky never fully darkened. Taishakuten sat on the dais at the head of the Great Hall next to King Ashura. Both were imbibing an excellent vintage of wine. The king, however, was poor company, taciturn and gazing out across Hall, absently sipping from his goblet while watching the courtiers and servants. He gave no sign that he appreciated, or even heard, the expensive musicians that Taishakuten had engaged. It was quite strange, and would have made many people uncomfortable, but Taishakuten prided himself on his thick skin. He knew the king's distraction was due to no fault in the entertainments or the denizens of Vasara.

"Your son shows great promise with the staff, Majesty," Taishakuten commented, attempting to make conversation about a subject that would engage Ashura. Taishakuten admired skill in the martial arts, and Fai, young and untrained as he was, truly did display talent with the weapon. "He will make an excellent warrior someday."

"Foster son," Ashura corrected, the hint of exasperation in his voice unmistakable.

"Of course, Your Majesty. That is what I meant," Taishakuten replied smoothly. The fiction that Fai was unrelated to Ashura was tiresome, but there was nothing to do but go along with it. The pretense was probably necessary for the child's protection and to keep internal strife to a minimum. At least while Ashura pretended that Fai wasn't his son by blood, no one would worry that Fai might one day be king. Not very much, at any rate.

Ashura rolled his goblet between his hands and stared pensively at the activity in the Hall. The musicians had just begun a new set, and lines of dancers moved through the paces, chattering and laughing. Lady Kendappa moved gracefully among them. A gangly young nobleman stumbled over her skirt, and, red-faced, apologized profusely. She giggled, made some comment that set him at ease, and both resumed their dance. At the side tables, other courtiers played cards, board games, and gambled, all while eating and drinking their fill. Everyone was in excellent cheer.

A look of grief flashed across the king's face, swiftly replaced by the serene mask he wore so often.

"Does something trouble you, Your Majesty?" Taishakuten dared to ask. He could see no reason why Ashura should be unhappy when all was so pleasant and his people were enjoying themselves without reservation.

Ashura glanced over at him. "I was only contemplating the future," the king returned calmly. His bland, controlled expression revealed nothing of his thoughts.

Taishakuten raised his brows. "Indeed? The future seems quite promising to me. The whole country is in the midst of unprecedented plenty. The record profits and projected crop surpluses should carry us quite well through the year." This might be a good opportunity to mention the unusual effectiveness of the force of magic and extra blood spilled at the King's Sacrifice, and slip in a suggestion that a repeat performance could be beneficial to Seresu.

"I was thinking somewhat longer term than that." Ashura sipped his wine sedately.

Longer term? Taishakuten wondered if Ashura was considering some new policy or treaty with long reaching ramifications, and if there was some disadvantage in it that affected the king personally. He'd heard that Ashura was considering negotiations with Thule. A new alliance might require a marriage bond. Perhaps Ashura was contemplating which of his few remaining relatives he'd have to barter away for Seresu's advantage. That could certainly depress anyone, especially a man known to be fond of his family. And Ashura had been watching Kendappa dance at the time he'd looked so sorrowful, after all. She seemed the most likely candidate for a state marriage. Ashura's available niece and nephew were both extremely young, although it wasn't unheard of for a prince or princess to be betrothed or even married and shipped off to another kingdom while still in childhood for political purposes. Tancred was safe from the fate of political expatriation, as he was Ashura's official heir. Any bride of his would be required to live in Seresu. Taishakuten assumed Fai was also safe, for a similar if unacknowledged reason, no matter how much Ashura protested that Fai was not his son and could never be king.

Of course, Taishakuten knew he might be reading too much into one fleeting, sorrowful look. Although he could identify the emotional states of others and use that knowledge to predict their behavior or manipulate them, he had always had difficulty empathizing with them. Usually he didn't even bother trying, but this was the king. The issue causing Ashura's distress might very well be something totally unrelated to foreign affairs. Taishakuten knew he shouldn't make assumptions. There were a wide range of concerns that might be preying on Ashura's mind. Taishakuten decided to probe a bit, and said carefully, "I suppose it is a king's destiny to always think of his country's future."

"A king's destiny," Ashura repeated softly. He gave Taishakuten an unreadable look. "Don't tell me that you believe in destiny, my lord? Would you accept an unalterable destiny, or even the choice between two unpleasant destinies, neither of which you desire?"

What a strange question. Was the king asking his advice? Taishakuten was pleased by that possibility, as it indicated that his efforts to gain Ashura's confidence were bearing fruit. However, he wished the king had been a little more forthcoming and shared some actual details. It was hard to determine what kind of answer Ashura truly desired, or if he wanted an answer at all and was merely speaking aloud to help him think his problem through.

For his part, Taishakuten found the question pointless and ultimately irrelevant. He would never simply accept a fate thrust upon him. Destiny was created, not merely endured. He would force another option to exist, bending or breaking all that opposed his desires. His iron will could not ever be contested by simple, unthinking fate. He grinned, unable to contain his natural arrogance and confidence in his own abilities. "Of course not. I command my own destiny. No one makes it for me. To get what I want, I'll move the stars themselves, if that's what it takes."

The king smiled wistfully. "If only it were that easy," he murmured, and gazed down into his wine goblet.

Taishakuten's brows went up again. Easy? Whatever was troubling the king must be very serious indeed. "Anything that benefits Seresu must surely be worth whatever difficulty it engenders."

Ashura nodded. "Of course, that is true," he said, looking out at the court again.

The topic of Seresu's benefit made Taishakuten again think of the King's Sacrifice and its positive effects on the whole country. Ashura's depressed mood, however, precluded any mention of it. He could wait until Ashura was feeling better. There would be plenty of other opportunities before the king returned to Luval.

"Do you really think Fai has potential as a warrior?" Ashura asked suddenly. "I believe so, but Vainamoinen has warned me that I am not objective in regards to him."

This seemed a safe topic, and Taishakuten could be honest. "Yes, I do. He is quick and agile, and has excellent reflexes, balance, and a good eye. Despite his youth, he seems to have a natural feel for the way the staff moves. He should prove quite competent with any number of weapons and unarmed combat techniques."

"The staff can sometimes behave almost like a living thing," Ashura mused. "A contrary one, at that. It's good that his staff training doesn't frustrate him too much." He added abruptly, "I plan to start him on archery next."

"I am sure he will enjoy that," Taishakuten replied. "An early start is essential to gain true mastery of the martial arts. As I said, I believe he will someday make a most excellent warrior, Your Majesty."

"He will need to be," Ashura muttered, "should he be fortunate enough to grow into a man. I fear for his future..." He broke off and stared out over the Hall with clouded eyes.

"Majesty?" Taishakuten asked. This topic was proving to be as strange and difficult to navigate as the one about destiny.

Why would the king fear for his bastard son's future? Fai was being given every advantage of wealth, privilege, power, and position. He was intelligent and physically adept. By all accounts he would one day become a great wizard, as well. But Taishakuten also knew that, unless Ashura married and produced a legitimate son, Fai might easily become a flashpoint in kingdom politics. That could prove dangerous to the child, and the country at large. Reason enough, he supposed, for Ashura to worry.

Taishakuten didn't particularly care who followed Ashura on the throne, as long as the successor didn't threaten his own power and position. He was too fascinated by the current king and too preoccupied with his own aggrandizement. Ashura, however, clearly had plans for his cub. Was he asking obliquely, and perhaps even unconsciously, for help? Taishakuten sensed an opportunity there. Only a fool would neglect to take advantage of it, and Taishakuten was no fool.

"Majesty, whatever it is you fear," Taishakuten said, "there are those of us loyal to you who, on your order, will defend Lord Fai with our lives." The words had come out perfectly. Taishakuten congratulated himself. Could there be a better show of commitment to the king?

Ashura looked startled, but immediately schooled his expression back to placidity. "I thank you, my lord, but that really isn't necessary. He is well protected against the usual threats, and, as happens too often, I am merely over-thinking matters," the king said calmly. "Your best duty is to maintain the border."

Taishakuten nodded, and to cover his perplexity took a drink of wine. If the child was so well protected, what was the king worried about? That comment about the border was telling, and a subject near and dear to Taishakuten's heart. "Do you anticipate increased hostilities with our charming neighbors to the south?"

Perhaps that was what Ashura was brooding over. Perhaps he was only thinking of future warfare that might involve his son. In fact, that could be why he had asked for Taishakuten's opinion of Fai's potential as a warrior. Ashura's own brother had been killed during a conflict with Arimaspea. Taishakuten thought that memory was probably what was driving this odd conversation about Fai. Ashura had never visited the Southlands with a son before.

Taishakuten did not fear conflict; he embraced it with open arms. A good war would suit him just fine, especially one with Arimaspea. The hit and run tactics of the Arimaspi raiders drove him insane. He was itching to find an excuse—any excuse—to invade that country and stomp out the troublemakers once and for all, but only the sovereign could declare war on another nation. So far, Ashura had resisted escalating the hostilities into open warfare. Maybe that was changing. Taishakuten hoped so. If the king needed a nudge in the right direction, Taishakuten would be happy to oblige.

Ashura blinked and returned his focus to his companion. "No, not particularly," he said, "but I often dwell on the difficulties with Arimaspea when I am in the Southlands. It seems unavoidable, despite how calm the border remains this year." He paused in thought, and suddenly looked chagrined. "Forgive me for that, Lord Taishakuten. I did not mean to offend you or impugn your efforts at controlling the situation here. You do an excellent job of defending the Southlands."

Taishakuten bared his teeth in a broad grin. "I did not take offense, Majesty. I was instead thinking of how pleasant it would be to wipe Arimaspea off the map entirely."

"Fai suggested something similar a while back." Ashura smiled faintly. "He thinks we should conquer Arimaspea."

"Does he? Fai is obviously a most intelligent child." That suggestion certainly endeared Fai to Taishakuten. He noticed how, no matter what tangents it strayed onto, Ashura's conversation always returned to Fai. That could be put to excellent use. Suppose Fai's childish words kept the problem of Arimaspea at the forefront of Ashura's mind, and then Taishakuten provided solid, valid reasons why it was a good idea to finally deal with that troublesome country as it deserved...

"I agree." The king smiled. "But as I said, I am not exactly objective about Fai."

No wonder so many believed Fai would one day sit on the throne, no matter what Ashura and his advisors said to the contrary. Ashura simply could not stop talking about his whelp. It was even worse now than it had been at Sunbirth. That mania wasn't particularly unexpected or disturbing behavior for a new father, especially one who had discovered his child under such extraordinary circumstances, and undoubtedly it would pass as Ashura settled into his new role as a parent. Ashura had not had Fai for very long, less than a year, in fact. Time would cure his excessive preoccupation. But Taishakuten also thought the king could be quietly laying the foundations for future support for Fai.

Taishakuten would do whatever it took to gain the king's favor, any favor, whatever Ashura was willing to bestow. So if Ashura wanted Fai to follow him on the throne—and it certainly appeared as though he did—Taishakuten would make it happen, even if he had to tear the country apart stone by stone and rebuild it in the correct image.


	52. Chapter 52

Enjoying the mild weather, Fai took an early morning walk outdoors on the castle grounds before breakfast. He studiously ignored the servant who followed him at a respectful distance. It was, he thought, a little stifling to always have someone supervising him. Within the security of Luval Castle, and even at Clissin, he was allowed to go where he wished without company. Everyone in those places kept an eye on him, that was true, but once he had learned his way and stopped getting lost in the corridors, the servants had quit following him everywhere like shadows. But here at Castle Vasara, he always had a servant or a guard trailing after him.

No wonder the king sometimes liked to escape. He was almost never alone, even at Luval. Fai thought that he would want to run away, too, if he were watched so closely all the time. He kind of wanted to run away now, with just one servant accompanying him for a simple walk around the inner bailey. He didn't, though, because he knew the servant would get into trouble. Besides, Fai didn't want to sit through a lecture about indecorous behavior.

He wandered idly, watching as the castlefolk made preparations for Sun's Wending. They were stacking high piles of wood for a great, central bonfire, and decorating what seemed like every available surface with greens and wildflowers. Smoke and tempting smells wafted from outbuildings that housed kitchens. A group of chattering maidservants passed by, having just entered the bailey from an excursion outside the castle to gather the first wild strawberries of summer. The baskets they carried were heaped full, and it was all Fai could do to stop himself from reaching out and snatching a handful. He stared longingly at the delicious-looking red berries.

One of the maids winked at him and held out her basket. "Go ahead, my lord," she said.

Fai didn't need to be told twice. "Thank you," he said, as politely as he could with his mouth and fists full of sweet strawberries.

"You're very welcome, my lord." The maid giggled, curtseyed, and hurried after her companions.

Fai decided he was going to like Sun's Wending even better than he'd liked Sunbirth. He'd really enjoyed Sunbirth, except for the King's Sacrifice and the ever-present whispers. But for Sun's Wending, there weren't any frightening ceremonies where the king was required to shed blood, and nobody seemed to be gossiping about Fai, either. The king had been right when he'd said that the rumors would eventually fade. For this festival, there was just delicious food and lots of parties and happy people. It had all the good things about Sunbirth, without any of the drawbacks. And it was a lot warmer and lighter, too.

The Feast of Sun's Wending was another festival that celebrated the sun, like Sunbirth. The seasons were ruled by the sun's journey, and were of supreme importance to a cold, harsh country like Seresu. King Ashura had told him that on Midsummer's Day the sun would be at its highest point in the entire year and seem to stand still, making Midsummer's Day the longest day of the year and the most important day of the festival. Then, on subsequent days, the sun would appear to move forward again, which was why the holiday was called the Sun's Wending. He had also told Fai that back in Luval, the night would barely occur right before and after Midsummer, and that the sun would merely dip below the horizon for about an hour, so there would only be brief twilight and no true night at all. Fai really wanted to see that. He had asked if they could stay in Luval next year for Midsummer's Eve and Day.

"If you wish, Fai," King Ashura had said in response to his request. "But remember, it will still be very cold and icy there. It won't be clear or warm like here in the Southlands."

Fai had to admit that it was nice to have mild weather to wear lighter clothes, to ride and practice with his wooden staff, and just to walk around without freezing. He liked eating freshly picked strawberries, too. A lot. He greedily popped some into his mouth. Behind him, he thought he heard his guardian snicker, but he didn't bother to check, and he didn't feel the slightest bit guilty for not sharing his bounty.

The people of Seresu really did have awfully nice holidays. They had a lot of them, too. Fai knew a variety were scattered throughout the year, including a big harvest festival in the fall and the midwinter Festival of Lighting the Night. That one also sounded fascinating, especially as celebrated in Luval. At midwinter there would be several nights with hardly any daylight, the reverse of midsummer. There would be only a brief period of daylight at sunrise, and the light would come from the soft glow on the horizon before the sun sank again an hour or two later. If the weather was clear, the stars would be at their brightest, and he would see the Gods' Sacred Fires: the dancing, rippling, multicolored curtains and rays of light that sometimes appeared in the night sky. He had only seen that once before, on a rare night without clouds. The midwinter festival had originally started out as a sacrifice, the people offering tribute to the gods and to lure the sun back so that deep winter would end. Everyone celebrated now by bringing light into the world with a multitude of candles and hearth fires and, for the magicians, lots of glowing magelights. And, of course, there would be plenty of special food and parties.

Munching on the last of his strawberries, Fai watched a group of menservants attempt and fail to put a flower and greenery garland up on an outbuilding against the curtain wall. They tried again, and failed again. Some soldiers joined them and offered suggestions, then a few maidservants, grooms, and cooks also went over. Quite a crowd was gathering. All those people, and yet the garland remained in human hands and not on the wall. Fai wondered how many people it took to put up one garland.

Apparently, he wasn't the only person who was curious about that. Lord Taishakuten himself appeared in the bailey and stalked to the crowd, accompanied by his senior wizard, Master Ateas. The warlord was scowling and looked impatient; he must have been attending to some other outdoor business when the impromptu garland hanging party had formed. The crowd nervously parted and let them through. Fai drifted to one side and tried to stay inconspicuous, even though he wanted to see what would happen next.

During Sunbirth, Lord Taishakuten had barely noticed him. The warlord's attention had been centered on the king, Lord Vainamoinen, and the Council of Nobles. Mostly the king, Fai recalled uncomfortably. Lord Taishakuten was still paying attention to the king, but here in his own stronghold he had many other important duties and responsibilities to distract him. Besides, Lady Kendappa had said Lord Taishakuten didn't want to hurt the king, but only to gain more power. Lots of nobles wanted to gain more power through the king, but for some reason they didn't unnerve Fai the same way.

However, Lord Taishakuten must have realized that Fai was uncomfortable with him. The warlord had been making a big effort to be nice to Fai. He didn't seem quite so bad when he exerted himself to be pleasant and friendly, even if it was just for show. And there was no denying that he was a very fascinating person. Fai was beginning to understand Virender and Mielu's worship of Lord Taishakuten. Only a little, though. There was also something about him that seemed cold and distant, like people's feelings didn't really matter to him, no matter how much he pretended otherwise.

Lord Taishakuten himself gripped one end of the garland and barked out some orders to the other people holding it. As one, they all raised it up and then cautiously let go. For a breathless moment, it stayed put, looking quite pretty. Then it fell again, landing in the dirt. What, Fai wondered, was so hard about hammering a few nails into a beam and hooking a garland over them?

Lord Taishakuten looked like he wanted to stomp the flowers and greenery into mush. It was a good thing he wasn't a magician, Fai thought, or he might blast the poor garland into ashes. Master Ateas said something to his lord. Lord Taishakuten threw up his hands and backed off.

Master Ateas gestured. A small ribbon of spell-runes formed, and Fai felt a gentle swish of magic. The garland levitated up to the wall and draped itself properly in place. The wizard lowered his hands. The garland stayed put. The crowd applauded, laughing. Looking annoyed, Lord Taishakuten said something to Master Ateas, and the wizard just shrugged and grinned.

Fai heard chuckling behind him, and turned. Instead of his trailing servant, he saw the king and Lady Kendappa. He'd been so focused on the incompetent decorating that he hadn't noticed them come up behind him. Both were watching the garland hanging party and looking highly entertained.

"This is the real reason I go on progress during the summer," King Ashura said. "So I don't have to deal with recalcitrant decorations back home."

"That's right," Lady Kendappa agreed, smiling. "It has nothing to do with good traveling weather at all."

The king flashed her a grin. "I never thought I'd see the fearsome Griffin of the South hang flower garlands."

"It is an odd sight. I'm so glad we overheard that servant spreading news of the show." Her eyes twinkled merrily.

At that moment, Lord Taishakuten turned and caught sight of them. He smiled and started over. Fai's eyes widened, and he shrank back a little, but then a manservant came running up to the warlord. Taishakuten grimaced. The servant gestured toward the gatehouse.

Fai looked where the servant had pointed. A woman in a blue cloak and carrying a staff was calmly walking through. Alarmed, all Fai could say was, "Oh."

King Ashura regarded him worriedly. "What's wrong, Fai?"

Lady Kendappa nodded at the gatehouse and the Völva there. "I think he's developed an aversion to the Völur," she said. "A perfectly understandable reaction. I've developed a similar aversion to them this year."

The king sighed. "Fai, the Völur always attend the festivals. They preside at many of the religious observances, and also often perform blessings and divinations. You had best grow accustomed to seeing them. They wander throughout the entire country, and have a habit of appearing at the oddest times."

Lord Taishakuten went over to the Völva and spoke to her.

Fai said, "I just wasn't expecting to see one again so soon."

"It has been several months, Fai." The king regarded the Völva with disfavor. "Why don't we take a walk and look at the decorations. It appears that Taishakuten will be occupied for a while."

"She's probably here to conduct the bonfire blessing ceremony on Midsummer's Eve," Lady Kendappa said.

"Very likely," King Ashura agreed. He put a hand on Fai's shoulder and steered him away.


	53. Chapter 53

Despite the calming words he'd offered Fai, Ashura wasn't particularly thrilled to see a Völva walk into the castle bailey, either. The priestess only served to remind him yet again of the King's Sacrifice. He had never gotten a satisfactory explanation for the Völur's behavior back then, although he knew it had something to do with the royal curse and the way it bound him, Seresu, and the land's magic together. Several weeks after Sunbirth had concluded, he had finally gotten some confirmation of that suspicion, although it had been vague. After a great deal of royal pressure, Suhail had grudgingly muttered that the sacred sisterhood's divinations had informed them that this year's sacrifice was special, and that many of them had wanted to experience it in person.

"Or so they claimed," the Lord Wizard had said. "You must admit, the sacrifice was extraordinary."

Ashura's reply to that had contained more bile than reason. Suhail had attempted to placate him, emphasizing the Völur's excessive religious zeal. That had also touched a sore spot, since Ashura knew his curse had once carried special religious significance. But he could not admit to that knowledge—at least, not without creating more concerns regarding his state of mind and even his sanity. No one, not Suhail nor even his own family, had ever believed his visions were real, back when he'd been very, very young and still naïve enough to talk about them. He had known that would not change, especially after his aberrant behavior during deep winter, and had ended the conversation in defeat and a foul mood.

The newly arrived Völva wasn't the only person who reminded him of the unpleasant events during the spring festival's most important rite. Earlier, Taishakuten had found an opportunity to allude to the ceremony, suggesting that perhaps the excess of blood and magic had led to the country's increased prosperity. Ashura had changed the subject abruptly. Taishakuten had looked surprised, but made no demur at the conversation's new direction.

Taishakuten wasn't the first to remark on the country's flourishing prosperity. Other nobles who had attended the King's Sacrifice in Luval had also commented on it when they encountered him, and they had made the same connection.

Ashura had come to a different conclusion entirely.

He wasn't blind to or unaware of the positive effects; he had had a great many reports during spring about Seresu's remarkable outbreak of growth and abundance. He understood why the nobles were so pleased, but to him, it seemed an ominous omen. He was forcibly reminded of how a dying man might sometimes rally for a few days and exhibit a burst of energy. The liveliness would often fool his caretakers into believing the person was improving, but always it would fade. Then the man's skin would grow waxy, his eyes glassy and blank, his breathing labored, and at last death would inevitably claim its victim.

Ashura feared that this surge of prosperity might very well be Seresu's death rally. He wondered how and when the decline would begin, and what form it would take.

He kept his breathing slow and easy, even as he dwelled on the frightening prospect before him. It brought all his own doubts and fears forward, and forced him once again to consider the decision he still refused to consciously make.

He told himself there was still time, that there might be another alternative, a way to save both Fai and Seresu, if only he were clever enough and determined enough to find it. He knew he was lying to himself, but he didn't care.

Fai's shoulder under his hand was warm and alive. The child was so excited about the upcoming festival. Ashura casually walked to the opposite side of the bailey with his son and his cousin, admiring how the castle was gearing up for the Feast of Sun's Wending, and then they all went in to breakfast.

Despite his efforts to forget, to put his knowledge of the past and future aside for a time, he couldn't enjoy the meal. He couldn't stand the cheerful faces all around him. He had to get away for a while. After breakfast he mentioned that he would ride out for some exercise. Fai immediately asked to go along, and Ashura hadn't the heart to refuse him. Fai's presence would not be conducive to regaining a peaceful state of mind, as he was the ultimate source of Ashura's turmoil. Yet he couldn't say no to the child, and did desire Fai's company. As always, he recognized the perversity of his conflicting emotions, and as usual was unable to resolve them to his satisfaction. He decided to add a distraction to the ride, and invited Kendappa along.

To his disappointment, she promptly begged off, pleading certain "female troubles" that Ashura really didn't need to know about with regards to his cousin. She threatened to elaborate, and he found an excuse to be elsewhere. Quickly. Which, he was certain, had been her intention.

Not that it mattered. Within the hour, he, Fai, and twenty royal guards rode out of Castle Vasara and onto the road to the town.

Originally, Ashura had planned to keep the outing relatively short, maybe just to ride around the castle's attached farmlands and some of the local forest. He would have liked to give his mount its head and gallop blindly, but with Fai along that was out of the question. The child couldn't ride well enough yet to go haring off across the countryside, jumping obstacles and avoiding holes and rocks. Still, Ashura found that the ride and the pleasant scenery did much to ease his mind. Then Fai mentioned that he wanted to see the royal hunting lodge.

To call it a hunting lodge was something of a misnomer; in reality, it was a small castle, with a keep, outbuildings, and a watchtower, all surrounded by stone walls. The lodge was only ten miles away from Vasara Town, and twelve from Castle Vasara. Visiting it would provide a good, long ride, and they could spend the night there before riding back in the morning. Ashura saw no reason to deny Fai's request. He took a moment to send out a magical probe to contact Lord Syed, and informed the wizard of the change of plans. That done, he resolved to enjoy the fresh air and exercise.

The route took them past the farms to Vasara Town. The town center was enclosed in thick, ancient curtain walls of stone. The town was growing healthily, and now buildings and businesses extended outside the safety of the walls. The gates were wide open to allow carts and people to move in and out.

"I've never seen a walled city," Fai said. "The other cities we saw don't have walls."

"That is because they are protected in the interior of the country," Ashura told him. "Here in the Southlands, most of the larger towns are walled. Historically, it was for their defense, although there have been no attacks this deep in the Southlands in well over a hundred years. The farms cannot be walled, though, so cannot be guarded so well..." He stopped his lecture when he saw that Fai wasn't listening.

Fai clearly wasn't interested in defensive practicalities. He instead seemed fascinated by the stream of traffic passing through the gates. "What's going on? It looks like lots of people are going in."

Ashura smiled. "The town always holds a fair and special market during Sun's Wending. There will be a great variety of merchandise available, along with food and entertainers."

"Oh." Fai leaned forward and tried to peer through the gates.

"We can go to the fair instead of the hunting lodge," Ashura offered.

"Can't we do both?" Fai asked pertly.

Ashura chuckled at the obvious greed. "Well, not in one day. We can do one today, and the other on another day. Which would you prefer to do today?"

Choosing appeared to be quite a dilemma for the child. Fai frowned, but said, "The hunting lodge. That's what I wanted to see today. But you promise we can go to the fair, too?"

"We can go sometime within the next few days," Ashura confirmed.

That settled the matter. They ambled past the town and through more farmland. An hour later they entered the Black Forest. This, Ashura explained to Fai, was a hunting and wildlife preserve. It was huge tract of ancient woodland that had never been cleared, and extended many scores of miles.

The giant evergreen trees were immensely tall and dense, with dark green needles and moss-covered bark that was almost black. Their wide branches formed a canopy that blocked out most of the daylight, so that the forest seemed shrouded in perpetual twilight. Scrubby bushes and ferns eked out a living in the damp, needle-carpeted earth. The brush and bracken rustled with the movements of small animals, and birds chattered from the branches overhead.

"These trees are very thick," Fai observed. "The trees in the Silvalfar Forest are a lot thinner."

"That is because they are higher up in the mountains, and the soil there is rockier and less fertile. Here, the trees can grow more freely," Ashura said.

"Are we almost to the lodge?"

"It is not very much farther. Perhaps another half hour's ride or so, if we increase our pace."

Fai nodded, then squinted off to the southwest. "Oh, that's interesting. Is that normal?"

Ashura followed his gaze. All he saw was the forest. "What are you looking at, child?"

"That magic over there."

Ashura hadn't noticed anything. He felt a frisson of alarm. "Magic?"

"Uh huh. There are clusters of magic in that direction. They look kind of like big green and brown bubbles."

Ashura's sense of alarm grew. Fai could see magic that no one else in Seresu could. The child could actually see the castle shrine's magic, and he had also seen the magic that the Völur's chants had raised from the land during the King's Sacrifice. Only a fool would ignore Fai now.

Ashura held his mount to a steady walk, calmed his breathing and thoughts, and focused in the direction Fai had indicated. At first, there was nothing. He kept his mind a blank mirror, to capture and reflect any stray mystical images. Now that he knew something was out there...

There, he sensed something, something—shimmering at the edges of his awareness. Something that didn't belong in the woods.

Awareness grew. He sensed many somethings, a great many, disguised in highly subtle and sophisticated magic that blended into the ubiquitous background auras of earth, vegetation, and wildlife. Whatever lurked out in the forest was camouflaged so well it was indistinguishable from the trees and brush and birds. The concealment had a slippery quality. Even though he knew something was out there, still his senses slid over the cloaks as though there were nothing to find. No friendly party would hide in such a manner.

They were moving, too, closing in on his troop, but he found the speed and distance impossible to gauge.

"Fai," Ashura asked, keeping his voice quiet, calm, and steady, "can you tell how close the magic is to us?"

Fai shook his head. "It keeps moving and shifting. Sometimes it seems really close, and sometimes it seems really far away. It's really interesting."

Interesting wasn't how Ashura would describe it. He reined in his horse. The rest of his entourage stopped with him.

"Is something wrong?" Fai asked.

"Fai, you will ride with Ragnarr," Ashura told him, beckoning one of the guards forward.

"I'm not too tired to ride," Fai protested, looking offended.

"Fai, do not argue." Ashura turned his head to the guard. "You will carry Lord Fai with you," he ordered. He reached over, lifted Fai from his saddle, and handed him off to Ragnarr, who settled the child firmly before him. At least now Ashura wouldn't have to worry about Fai if—when—things went bad.

Then he spoke in a low, nearly inaudible tone, and magically projected his words to all his men. "We are being tracked by an unknown group. They are using an unusual form of camouflage magic to hide from us. I do not believe they realize yet that we have detected them. I cannot tell how close they are, nor exactly how many are out there, but I do know they outnumber us."

"Outlaws, perhaps, Your Majesty?" asked the grim-faced Captain Faren, who had stopped near the king.

"On Taishakuten's land? Quite unlikely," Ashura responded with raised brows. Even if Taishakuten weren't infamous for his harsh justice and his intolerance for lawlessness, no simple band of outlaws would stalk such a large and well-armed group, nor would they have such sophisticated magic shields that could escape even Ashura's notice. But who could maintain a hostile force in the well-protected interior of the Southlands, right under Taishakuten's nose?

For the benefit of any unknown watchers, Ashura made a show of checking over Fai. He had once feared that the rumor about Fai and the succession might spark a civil war that would tear the country apart. Was this the beginning of the insurrection he had believed avoided? Worse, could it be Taishakuten, himself? The trip to the hunting lodge had been a spur of the moment impulse, but Ashura had let Syed know about the change of plans. The wizard certainly would have informed Taishakuten. Ashura knew the warlord was ambitious, but did his ambitions extend to setting himself up as Seresu's ruler?

Ashura swiftly considered his options, which were, unfortunately, few. He didn't have the strength to magically transport the entire troop the short distance to safety. Teleportation wasn't as strenuous as world-walking and he could carry more people along with him and Fai, but even so he could only take perhaps five or six of the men. Additionally, he would be required to concentrate on the elaborate spell and marshal sufficient energy for a group, and that would take too long. Even if he completed the spell in time, the large burst of magic would probably spur their enemies into an immediate attack on those left behind.

Likewise, he didn't dare chance sending a magical communication strong enough to reach Syed or Kendappa at Vasara, or Suhail at Luval. It would require more precious time than he was willing to give, and also take his concentration away from monitoring their stalkers. It also had the same problem as teleportation: a magical pulse of the necessary strength would alert the mages among their unknown enemies that they had been detected. Besides, if Taishakuten was involved, Kendappa and Syed might already be prisoners or even casualties. He hated the thought, and couldn't make himself really believe it—Taishakuten had never been anything but loyal—but it had to be considered.

For now the enemy seemed content to stay hidden, but that state of affairs wasn't likely to last for long. Ashura's real hope was to catch them off-guard with a sudden flight, and then stay ahead of them until his party reached the hunting lodge. Once within the safety of the small castle, he could summon help from Luval and use as much magic as he wanted for the defense. The war wizards and court wizards could come quickly, bringing with them as many soldiers as they could carry. With that much extra aid, they could easily hold out until the royal army arrived.

Ashura sincerely hoped this wasn't Taishakuten's doing. He didn't want civil war in the Southlands. But there was no way to know as yet. First, they had to get to the lodge, then he could determine the identity of his camouflaged stalkers. Out in the open, as he and his troop were now, they were much too vulnerable.

Fai had grown pale and watched with frightened eyes, but even after hearing the bad news he had stayed quiet. Ashura blessed the child for his silence and started the troop forward again at a deceptively unconcerned walk. "On my command, we shall make for the lodge with all speed," he said, still softly, still maintaining a thread of connection among his men so they could speak freely in hushed tones that unfriendly ears could not overhear. "It is walled and fortified." He would also set some esoteric traps and defenses once they got there.

Captain Faren scowled. "Your Majesty, you and Lord Fai should teleport to safety immediately. We will protect you until you are gone and then continue to the lodge as fast as we can." When Ashura stared at him, he added, "You are the king. You must not chance being taken."

Ashura let out an oath. Of course. He knew that. He knew as well that he shouldn't carry a child into a battle. But to abandon his men to their fates was such a cowardly and unnatural course of action that it hadn't even crossed his mind. His whole family was trained in the martial arts, and Ashura was a war wizard of no little skill. It was naturally his first instinct to stay and fight.

By the time help could arrive for the troop, it would be too late. None of the guards with him were magicians. They would be ripped to shreds by the mages who maintained that camouflage, but it was his duty to escape.

There were many advantages to being the king, but also a great many disadvantages that had to be accepted.

He ground his teeth. "Very well," he conceded. He again halted the troop, turned to Ragnarr, and gestured to Fai. "Give him here—"

An arrow flashed out of nowhere and pierced the captain through the eye. Faren uttered a soft cry and toppled sideways from his saddle. His horse panicked and plunged off into the woods. The dead captain's foot caught in a stirrup so that his body was dragged beneath the beast's hooves.

"Run!" Ashura yelled, cursing his inability to judge the attackers' range or exact position. There was no time now to create a teleportation spell. All they could do was run. He struck Ragnarr's mount with his riding crop. "Run!" The horse bolted forward. Ashura spurred and whipped his own mount into a gallop.

More arrows flew. Ashura flung a simple defensive shield over his troop. The arrows incinerated against the magical barrier harmlessly. Another volley immediately sang towards them. They met the same fate, but then several massive bolts of eldritch lightning crashed against his shield, shaking it.

Ashura swore. His men were ranged too far apart, and the shield stretched too thin. He whirled his horse. The beast reared up and spun on its hind legs, snorting wildly and stamping down hard on its front hooves. At that same instant, he launched a wide barrage of flaming icicles in the direction of the attacks and the strange magic. Explosions rocked the woods, and trees toppled with a flurry of cracking and splintering wood. He heard distant screams.

"Majesty!" A guard called to him. "Majesty, hurry! Before they regroup!"

Ashura doubted he and his troop would have even that long, but he spurred his horse and raced forward. "Pull in!" he ordered. "I can't protect everyone while we are scattered!"

All the men had their swords unsheathed, but there was little that ordinary steel could do against this kind of attack. He passed another running horse and rider, and saw Ragnarr and Fai just ahead of him. The child was leaning aside, head turned to watch Ashura. Fai looked absolutely terrified, with ashen skin and shocked blue eyes open wide. Ashura yelled up at him, "Fai! Fai, put a shield over yourself! A shield! Fai!" But Fai seemed too panicked to even comprehend.

More arrows and magic assaults struck and died against his barrier, weakening it further. Cursing with every breath, Ashura reinforced the damaged spots as he rowelled his steed to greater efforts. He heard one of his men shriek from the rear, and realized that an attack had gotten through. He didn't look back.

He unleashed another barrage of flaming icicles in the direction of the attacking mages. Explosions shook the forest and ruptured more trees, but this time he didn't hear any screams. Either he had missed entirely, or the enemy mages had the strength to guard against his attacks.

More bursts of raw magic slammed into his own shield. From the mystical signatures of the blasts, he was able to sense at least five, possibly six, mages against him. Immediately another fusillade of magic struck, closer to him, and another volley of arrows flew. Another of his men screamed and went down.

"Keep going! Faster!" he yelled at his men, and launched another salvo of his own at their unknown attackers.

Merciless spears of magic were battering at Ashura's shield now, blast after blast after blast, all focused directly on him. Obviously, the enemy mages had determined the source of their prey's defenses.

It occurred to Ashura that this was how his brother had died. From the accounts he had been told, the Arimaspi mages hadn't cared for their own losses and had focused exclusively on Tendulkar, launching tremendous, unrelenting magical blows to smash his shields, sap his strength, and make him vulnerable to physical weapons. It now seemed to Ashura that he would be defeated the same way.

Several more blasts on his shield rocked him physically. Pain lanced through his head; his hands trembled on the reins. His thigh and calf muscles twitched and spasmed as he dug the spurs into his horse's flank, demanding just a little more speed from the straining animal. Ashura knew he was drawing on too many reserves, draining physical strength to bolster the magical, but there was no help for it.

And then a massive thunderstroke burst upon him. The enemy mages had created a combined attack, he realized vaguely during the hard, annihilating shock that finally broke his power. His shield shattered into thousands of ghostly, glittering shards. He fought through the aftershock and managed to create a thin personal shield to take the brunt of the next attack that immediately followed, but that was all. The blast struck his mount with its full force. The horse screamed and stumbled and crashed down, falling on top of him. Ashura tried to roll away, but wasn't fast enough. He cried out as the dying beast's weight landed on his leg and the wind was knocked out of him as his chest hit the ground. Distantly, he heard Fai scream his name.

For just a moment he lay stunned and gasping, then self-preservation instinct roused him. He couldn't afford to just lie still; he didn't have time to recover. He could hear shouts now, voices in the woods, coming closer. Blaspheming heartily under his breath, he used a burst of levitation to lift the dead horse so he could crawl out from under it. Fortunately, his personal shield had prevented him from sustaining any serious injuries during the fall. Maybe now that he'd gone down, the enemy would get careless and drop their disguise, and he could burn their mages to ashes—

Before he could pull himself upright, he was slammed down by a mystical force so impossibly strong that he couldn't comprehend it. A storm of uncontrolled, uncontrollable magic raged like a monstrous cyclone; a crushing pressure drove him face first into the earth. He heard groans and cries around him, of horses and men, while the air roared and the ground heaved amid deafening booms. Forcing his head to one side, he saw trees and rocks explode, bursting apart in conflagrations of eldritch flame. Dirt and sharp debris flew as though caught in a whirlwind, cutting into the exposed skin of his cheek and hands. His own power rose in instinctive defense, only to be scorched away by the unstoppable magical onslaught.

A thin voice was wailing, wailing, and the cries seemed to generate and direct the conflagration that cut down friend and foe alike.

"Fai," Ashura whispered. Fai must have seen him go down, and this wild storm of hysterical, terrifying magic was the result. Ashura forced his head up, then with terrible effort he pushed magic into his own limbs, got onto his hands and knees, and crawled.

Around him were littered the quivering, unshielded bodies of men and horses. They weren't dead—at least he didn't think so—but that would change soon if Fai didn't stop. Ashura felt his own power reserves, already drained, shrinking fast. He tried to extend a thin tendril of reassurance to his son, only to have it incinerated in Fai's blind magefire. The burning raced along the thread back to Ashura. He bit back a scream at the searing pain and severed the connection before it ignited him like a human torch.

Painfully, he put one hand before the other and dragged himself forward across the shaking earth. Fai's storm battered at him, inside and out. The uncontrolled magic pummeled his flesh, and his very bones vibrated. He felt a disturbing fluttering sensation deep inside, and wondered how long it would be until his own body ruptured just like the trees and stones had done.

He could see Fai now. The child knelt in the center of the cyclone, screaming, with tears streaming from unseeing eyes. His head was thrown up to the sky, and his small fists were clenched tightly. Ragnarr and his horse lay nearby, shivering ever so slightly but otherwise unmoving.

"Fai," Ashura gasped. He reached out with one hand. "Fai, stop."

Fai didn't even seem to notice him. The child was beyond reason, apparently unable to see or hear anything. He just screamed and screamed, and his magic raged, completely unrestrained.

Around him, Ashura felt the presence of magical shields, straining against the hellstorm. The enemy mages, attempting to mount a defense. They were farther away and hadn't taken the initial brunt of the conflagration, but now Fai's magic was pounding them. One by one, Ashura felt the shields flare out, and with each an aura vanished in a flash of mystical fire.

"Fai," he tried again. Through sheer force of will, he crawled to Fai. The arcane pressure increased. Ashura pushed against it, and felt a trickle of warm liquid run from one nostril down onto his lip. Then he got to his knees, and with a last effort, threw himself forward and wrapped his arms around the hysterical, screaming child. "Fai, Fai, stop!"

Still not recognizing him, Fai struggled frantically against Ashura's hold. "No! No!" he shrieked. "Not again! Not again!"

"Fai!" Ashura screamed, just as loudly. "Fai, it's me! Stop! You're killing us!"

A solid blow of magic hit his midsection. Ashura cried out and almost vomited, but held onto Fai. "Fai, stop it!" There was only one way to get the child's attention fast. He drew back and slapped Fai across the face. "Fai!"

He had never, ever struck Fai before. He prayed he would never need to do so again.

Fai cut off in mid scream. His tear-drenched eyes were wide with twitching lids, but they focused on Ashura, and something like recognition lit in them. The whirling, howling magic slowed, only a tiny bit, but Ashura felt that anything was an improvement.

"K-King Ashura," Fai faltered. "You-you— You're alive—?"

Ashura hugged him close. "I'm alive."

Fai wrapped his thin arms around Ashura's body and hugged back. "You're alive..." he whispered, and gulped several times.

"Fai," Ashura said firmly, "Fai, you must control your magic. Please, Fai, remember how to control your magic." He thought of something that might get the boy to focus. Fai was a kind child; he didn't like causing unnecessary pain. "Fai, it hurts...it's hurting everyone..."

"Hurting you?" Fai pressed in tighter, shaking and hiding his face. "I-I—I don't want to—I'll try—"

The cyclone's ferocity eased; the earth tremors decreased. The raging magic slowed and faded. Ashura drew in a trembling breath. "That's it, Fai. Just a little more..."

He felt Fai nod against his chest, and then suddenly the hellstorm just...stopped.

Ashura almost collapsed with that sudden cessation of magical pressure. All was eerily still and silent, the only sounds coming from the crackling of flames and Fai's hushed, sobbing breaths. The birds and animals had been driven away by the violence. All around him and Fai, the trees, underbrush, and stones had been blasted in a huge circle. Shattered wood, pulverized rock, and ashes littered the area. Small fires flickered here and there. The men and horses lay quiet and unmoving, but they were intact, and Ashura could see those closest to him still breathing. Even lost to hysteria, Fai must have unconsciously spared them, although they had all been close to the edge. Ashura's own body felt strangely light and ephemeral, as though it would disappear as suddenly as Fai's magical storm had.

"Thank you, Fai," he murmured, fighting not to reel against sudden dizziness. He stroked Fai's hair. The child's magic felt nearly as drained as his own, and his small body seemed as limp and exhausted. Poor Fai had used almost everything in that storm. Had he continued, his own magic would have ultimately consumed him, even as it annihilated everyone in range.

"I'm sorry," Fai whimpered into Ashura's chest. "I'm sorry..."

"Hush, child, it's all right." But he knew it was not all right. Fai's outburst might well have doomed them. Ashura already heard alarmed voices rising from out beyond the edge of the destruction.

His eyes ranged over the area, attempting to see across the distance and past the trees that still stood but leaned to one side, bowed by the force of Fai's whirling, unrestrained magic. His own men were all dead, unconscious, or battered into helplessness. They wouldn't recover soon enough. His instinct was to locate the enemy, although what he could do against them, spent and alone, he didn't know. He barely had passive sensing mechanisms left to him, let alone any attack magic. It was futile.

Still, he reached out, searching. His hope was that the enemy had also been incapacitated or driven off by Fai's storm, but in that he was disappointed. He detected armed men, closing in. He also sensed only two remaining enemy mages with them. The others had used all their strength to protect their warriors and been consumed, burned out by the maelstrom Fai had unleashed. The surviving mages felt significantly weakened, but still too strong for comfort. Ashura couldn't even stand; he knew he would provide no challenge to those other magicians, nor to the approaching warriors.

Faced with that reality, he considered with despair if it wouldn't have been better to let Fai's storm continue unabated. The outcome for Fai, himself, and his men would have been the same, but maybe Fai's magic would have destroyed the enemy as well.

Strange, that he had not foreseen this scenario. He had been so certain that he and Fai had only two possible paths to follow into the future, but then, his visions had been clouded and obscured by that dark sorcerer for so long...

Ashura felt another wave of dizziness pass over him, this time accompanied by sickness, as his body slowly failed him. Darkness grew at the edges of his vision, and a blurry haze filmed the world. Through it, he saw shadowy figures emerge from the damaged trees.

"Kill everyone but the Griffin," a harsh, male voice ordered. "Leave no witnesses to carry tales back to Vasara. I don't want even a single horse to make its way back to give them warning."

Ashura heard choked cries and the sick, wet sound of swords chopping flesh. He held Fai close, wanting to stop the shivering child's ears. He didn't want Fai's final moments to be filled with terror and pain. With deep regret, he placed a hand on Fai's head and used his last reserves of magic. "Go to sleep, child."

Fai's frightened eyes calmed and closed peacefully, the tautness of his body relaxed, and his breathing evened out.

Ashura bowed his head, and flinched with each new thud and moan or gasp. He was helpless and on the verge of losing consciousness, his strength gone to feed his magic, and his magic drained and burned away to useless levels. There was nothing he could do to stop the slaughter of his men. He could only await his own turn.

The darkness pulsed.

He refused to succumb to his body's weakness. He would meet his death awake, and with what little honor and pride was left to him.

Ashura clutched Fai tightly to his chest and kissed the top of the sleeping, blond head. Two shadows came closer. One raised an arm high, and firelight flashed on steel. Fighting the creeping unconsciousness, Ashura bowed his own body over Fai's in a last attempt to shield his child. "I'm sorry, Fai," he whispered.

"Stop!" the other commanded, knocking the uplifted sword aside.

"Why?" the first shadow said. "He's not the Griffin."

"Look, you fool!" A cruel hand fisted in Ashura's hair and yanked his head up. He blinked and squinted, barely conscious but still holding Fai protectively. The encroaching darkness receded, and the shadows resolved into two armed warriors with swords held bare and ready. Blood dripped from the naked blades. "It's the Witch King himself. You'll lose your own head if you take his. Bartatua will have us all executed!"

"The Witch King?" The other warrior's free hand moved in what Ashura vaguely recognized as a superstitious gesture against evil. "No wonder we lost so many mages."

He was wrong about that, Ashura thought dimly. Fai's uncontrolled power storm had burned out their mages, and almost burned him out, as well. But it didn't matter, not now, and Ashura had neither the strength nor the inclination to correct his enemies' misapprehensions.

"A few mages is nothing!" The lead warrior laughed coarsely, and his grip tightened painfully in Ashura's hair. "Such a prize is worth any cost." He thrust Ashura away roughly.

Ashura instinctively curled around Fai again. He saw the leader raise his sword, pommel first, then pain exploded in his head and he fell into cold, empty darkness.


	54. Chapter 54

Taishakuten sat in the Great Hall, keeping company with one of his illustrious guests. He lounged in his massive chair by the hearth across from Lady Kendappa, listening with pleasure while she strummed her harp. The melodic notes, though soft, somehow filled the vaulted space. He wasn't the only one appreciating the music. The courtiers kept their voices down, and even the servants took care to perform their tasks as quietly as possible.

She really was a superb harpist, Taishakuten mused idly. She was also an excellent manager by all accounts, as well as very lovely. He speculated a bit about her potential skill with weapons and magic; everyone knew the royal family all trained in both the mystical and the warrior arts. A pity he couldn't lure her away from Luval to his own court. She would make quite the ornament to his growing power. Ah, but her loyalty to Ashura was well known, and besides, it really wasn't a good idea to steal the king's own cousin, no matter how impressive her varied skills and charms.

His first intimation that something was wrong came when she jerked and struck a bad chord. The sour notes twanged, jolting Taishakuten out of his contemplations. He stared at her, watching her face blanch and her eyes go so wide the whites around her irises became visible.

"My lady," he asked. "What is wrong?"

At that moment, Lord Syed D Greenstone burst into the Great Hall, followed closely by Master Ateas. The two wizards rushed straight for the hearth. They both looked just as pale and shocked as Lady Kendappa. Lord Syed choked out, "My lady, my lady... I think that was Lord Fai—"

Kendappa set aside her harp and rose from her seat. "I felt it, too. I know it was Fai."

Out of his peripheral vision, Taishakuten noticed the strongest magicians in Castle Vasara pouring into the Great Hall. Whatever had happened had the greater magical folk rattled to their toenails. The courtiers muttered nervously at the interruption. Taishakuten scowled at the room in general, then focused on the wizards nearest him.

"What has happened to Lord Fai?" he demanded, coming to his feet.

"His power exploded, and then it just...vanished. It wasn't only Lord Fai," Syed added breathlessly. "I thought I felt a touch of the king's magic, too, right before the surge. I think he was fighting something—"

"Ashura, too?" Kendappa breathed, going even paler. "I didn't feel him..."

"Why not?" Taishakuten asked her.

"My power isn't as great as Lord Syed's. I lack his range. Also, Ashura's power is less than Fai's and thus more difficult to sense from a distance," she explained, but her eyes were on Syed. "I cannot perceive either of them, though, not even Fai. Tell me, can you find them?"

"You said the king was fighting," Taishakuten said to Syed at the same time. "Who was he fighting? I thought he was going to the hunting lodge in the Black Forest. There is no danger there." It was bewildering. The interior of the Southlands was well supervised and kept lawful. And even if it weren't, no simple band of common outlaws would dare to attack such a large, armed troop.

"My lord, my lady, please, slow down," Syed begged. "King Ashura did send me a message earlier that he and Lord Fai were going to the hunting lodge. I relayed that to you accurately, my lord. I do not know what happened, but I got an indistinct sense that the king was using combat magic before Lord Fai's power exploded. Give me a moment, and I will attempt to locate them." He closed his eyes and seemed to go into a trance.

Taishakuten looked to his own wizard. "Do you know any more, Ateas?"

Ateas shook his head. "I only sensed the explosion of power, and its curtailment. I didn't recognize its source, but it was massive. Lord Syed told me it was Lord Fai."

Taishakuten grunted and exchanged a worried look with Kendappa. Syed's brow furrowed, and beads of perspiration formed on his skin. A circle of green spell-runes suddenly burst into life around him. The wizard began to tremble with effort. The runes glowed brighter and brighter, until they flared blindingly and vanished. Syed gasped and his eyes blinked open.

"What is it, Syed?" Kendappa asked intently. "What happened?"

The wizard looked utterly shocked and at a complete loss. "My lady, I cannot find them. There is no trace anywhere."

"There must be. You must have missed something."

He shook his head. "I tell you, there is nothing to find."

"Wait," Taishakuten said. "Why couldn't you find them? What does that mean?"

Syed held his hands out helplessly and cast his eyes aside. Kendappa looked horrified and covered her mouth with a hand.

Taishakuten looked to his own wizard, the only one he truly trusted to give him the unvarnished truth. "Ateas, what does it mean?"

"It means they are probably..." Ateas hesitated. "My lord, likely they are no longer part of this world. They are probably dead..."

"Dead?" Taishakuten shouted. The entire hall fell silent. He compressed his lips and lowered his voice. "Ashura cannot be dead. No one in the Southlands would even think of attacking him, much less kill him. Who in this entire country has the power to kill him?"

"The court wizards could do it, if they pooled their magic to break down his shields," Kendappa said numbly. "I believe Fai could, also."

"Obviously neither of those things happened," Taishakuten snapped. It wasn't a reasonable suggestion, no matter how distressed she was. The people she had mentioned were all devoted to Ashura. "Fai would never hurt him, and most of the court wizards aren't even here. Do you think they all lost their minds and just suddenly decided to teleport from Luval to commit regicide for no reason?"

"Perhaps a group of warriors and ordinary mages working together could also accomplish it," Ateas ventured, very quietly. "That is what happened to his brother."

Taishakuten frowned at that reminder. Tendulkar had been killed during an Arimaspi incursion into the border country of the Southlands. Taishakuten had been engaged fighting a different force of Arimaspi, and hadn't known Tendulkar and his troops had been in trouble until it was too late. Tendulkar's death hadn't been in vain; he had managed to destroy or disable many of the opposing mages, which had turned the tide of the battle.

Ashura hadn't blamed Taishakuten for his brother's death, although it would have been well within his rights. Taishakuten knew he should have found a way to protect the prince, despite Tendulkar's renown as a warlord and a war wizard. In retaliation for the offense, Taishakuten had publicly executed every captured Arimaspi warrior and mage. Slowly. He recalled that Ashura, grief-stricken and enraged, had wholeheartedly approved that particular act of vengeance.

To Taishakuten's mind, Tendulkar's death was still a huge black mark against himself and his army.

Had he now lost the king, as well? It was unthinkable!

Kendappa nodded. "Yes, that is true, if they were strong enough, or if there were enough of them," she said in a firmer voice. Her color had returned, and her eyes looked less grim. "But what Master Ateas said about Ashura no longer being part of this world makes me think that there is another possibility. Whenever Ashura has gone world-walking in the past, none of the court wizards could ever find him. When he went to get Fai, we had no idea what had happened to him until he returned."

"Would he have done that again?" Syed asked. "His oaths..."

"Come now, he's broken them before," Taishakuten said dismissively. "Fai is proof of that. Ashura might very well have done it again if it were his only means of survival. Practicality should always come before any ridiculous ceremonial oaths."

"My lord, you do not understand—"

"What is there to understand?" Taishakuten asked, cutting the court wizard off. "We have a viable alternative. We shall pursue it. I also want to know just who in my domain would dare to attack the king's troop. Whoever they are, they need eliminating." He commanded a servant, "Send my war leaders and captains to me, at once!"

The servant bowed and hurried out.

"My lord, even supposing that the king world-walked to escape his attackers, he would have returned to us immediately," Syed protested, "if only to warn us of the hostile force."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he was injured and doesn't have the strength to return yet," Ateas said pragmatically. "But why wouldn't he have just teleported away? If he had the luxury of enough time to concentrate on complex and demanding spells, surely he would have chosen teleportation over world-walking. Teleportation would have been much easier and quicker to accomplish."

Kendappa agreed regretfully, "Yes, world-walking does take a great deal of effort from him, and the spell is elaborate. I've seen him do it. It is not magic he could successfully perform on the spur of the moment with no preparation, let alone while under attack."

"Yes..." Taishakuten realized they were all grasping at straws to even consider the idea. "He and his men must have been surprised. The attack must have come upon them so suddenly that Ashura didn't have time to cast any complicated spells, not even teleportation, otherwise he'd be here or at Luval right now, and you wizards would be able to find him. Then he must be..." He stopped and grimaced. Straws or no, he wasn't ready to accept the worst-case scenario yet.

Then another thought occurred to him. Somehow the attackers must have hidden themselves from Ashura in order to surprise him. That was obvious, and an important factor to consider. It implied excellent camouflage abilities and magic that could evade even the king's notice.

Taishakuten asked, "Perhaps King Ashura was instead taken prisoner. Is it possible that he is merely hidden from you?" That seemed more likely to Taishakuten. Ashura would make a valuable hostage. Only a madman or an utter fool would kill the king outright. Or some lowly foot soldier or rogue who didn't recognize Ashura, Taishakuten was forced to admit. He didn't speak that idea aloud.

Of course, there was also the sticky matter of actually holding Ashura. That would take some doing, given the king's skill and power as a wizard. But those difficulties could be avoided if he were kept unconscious. And he might be more easily hidden that way, as well, Taishakuten reflected.

Ateas said, "I do not know of any magic capable of that kind of deception. Certainly not anything that could avoid targeted searching and finding spells by Lord Syed, who is familiar with the king's magic, my lord."

"I've never heard of anything like that, either," Syed added, "and the court wizards have access to a great diversity of spell books, resources, and historical accounts."

"So what if there's no record of it being done before? That doesn't mean it can't be done now," Taishakuten countered. For all their power, these wizards seemed to have little imagination when it came to military matters. It was shocking, and striking, how many magicians preferred open force over stealth in warfare, especially considering how devious they could be in other ways. Sometimes he wondered why those types of mages became war wizards at all.

Maybe they just liked explosions.

Syed wasn't a war wizard so couldn't be expected to think in the proper terms, but even Ateas sometimes could not see what, to Taishakuten, seemed an obvious military solution. But then, Taishakuten knew for a fact that Ateas liked explosions.

Taishakuten pushed his own mages to develop new martial applications all the time, but they did need prodding and guidance in the proper directions. Someone else might have done the same and come up with a way to hide entire troops of men. An unpleasant idea stirred his thoughts. Could the Arimaspi have disguised themselves well enough to get into the interior of the Southlands? They were always causing problems. Had they been the attackers?

A moment's thought solidified that idea in his head. Honestly, who else would dare?

He should have thought of the Arimaspi immediately, but he'd been too focused on the mechanics of Ashura's disappearance, and too certain that Seresu's old enemies couldn't have gotten so far into the Southlands. He turned to Ateas. "Speed is of the essence. Have your magicians send messages to the mages at the border. The garrisons there are to seal it off. Put every watchtower on high alert. Full magical defenses are to be put in place, and patrols tripled. I don't want even an insect getting across to Arimaspea. Any Arimaspi found in our territory are to be detained and questioned, but not executed without my personal approval. Tell the commanders they are authorized to use whatever means necessary to control the border and extract information from prisoners."

Even that might not be enough. If the Arimaspi really had developed new camouflage magic, even the most extreme precautions might not prevent them from spiriting Ashura across the border. And if any of them were strong enough to teleport another person with them... Taishakuten could only hope for the best. A magician needed great power and skill to teleport even himself, let alone another. Comparatively few could accomplish the feat, and the Arimaspi mages were not known for that particular ability. So the most likely possibility was still a stealthy border crossing. At least his people would be forewarned and prepared for any more Arimaspi nonsense.

Ateas's eyes widened. "You think the Arimaspi—?" he breathed. Taishakuten glared him into silence; Kendappa and Syed looked appalled.

Ateas got hold of himself and nodded acknowledgement of the order. "Yes, my lord."

Satisfied that his wizard was in the proper mindset, Taishakuten continued, "Next, I want you to gather all the war wizards who can teleport one or more men with them. They will take trackers and warriors into the Black Forest to search the grounds. They will make multiple trips, if necessary." That task would exhaust the few war wizards capable of it, and it probably wouldn't even put a full troop on site, but at least his people would get a head start. "Lord Syed, I presume you can pinpoint the spot where Lord Fai's power exploded?"

Syed nodded. "I shall provide the direction to all the war wizards at once, and I will assist with the transport of your men."

"Good. Be sure to return to me. I want to know every detail they uncover."

Ateas and Syed bowed and left, taking most of the assembled mages with them. Kendappa sighed and said, "I suppose all that I can do is send word to Luval." She slowly seated herself and folded her hands in her lap.

"I am sorry there isn't anything positive or concrete to report," Taishakuten said.

She managed a faint smile. "It's better than what I would have initially told Vainamoinen and Suhail. I might have only informed them that we feared Ashura and Fai were killed. At least we now have more hopeful alternatives to offer."

Taishakuten gazed down at her, thinking. The instant Vainamoinen and Suhail were told about Ashura's disappearance, they would set the royal army marching to the Southlands, and then they would teleport ahead to Vasara in a storm of wrath and worry. They would probably interfere in every decision Taishakuten made, and worse, they would have every right to do so. And who knew how many other upset magicians and courtiers they would bring with them? It would be total chaos. Taishakuten knew he would be too busy to play any political games.

"Tell them they shouldn't come here just yet," he said. "There is nothing they can do."

"Lord Suhail is one of the strongest wizards in the entire country," Kendappa pointed out, not denying that Vasara would soon be graced with more members of the royal court. "He would be most useful in the search. So would the other court wizards. They are the best in Seresu."

Despite his desire to sidestep interference from Luval, Taishakuten couldn't argue with the truth. "Fine," he said curtly. "But I don't want a bunch of hysterical courtiers descending on us and making matters even worse. Tell them to bring only the personnel they absolutely need and trust to be calm and helpful."

She nodded silently. Then her hands moved, drawing a series of glowing spell runes in the air, and her eyes went blank and glassy. Her lips moved as though she were speaking with someone, although no sound came out.

He was distracted from watching her by the arrival of his war leaders. He apprised them of the situation, and instructed them to send their best trackers and woodsmen to Master Ateas for deployment as scouts with the war wizards. They were to scour the area and locate any traces at all of the king, Lord Fai, and their men, and were to do all possible to determine the identity and direction of the attackers.

He then ordered the war leaders to immediately gather one hundred men, with all the soldiers mounted, full armed, and prepared for war. He would lead them out to the battle site in the Black Forest as soon as Lord Syed determined its exact location. They saluted and left.

Taishakuten frowned absently after them. He wanted to leave immediately with the wizards, but there was no point. He could do nothing at the site except get in the searchers' way. It was best that he go with the regular troops. However, with luck, his advance scouts would have completed their investigation and have some information for him by the time he arrived.


	55. Chapter 55

Taishakuten avoided the fuss and bother that Suhail and Vainamoinen would surely have generated by the simple expedient of immediately departing for the Black Forest. He made sure to get the large troop moving out before the king's chief advisors arrived, and callously left Kendappa and Syed behind to deal with the inevitable drama. They could handle it. They were accustomed to councilors and court wizards, after all.

He took the most direct route possible, and hurried his men at a pace few other armed parties could match. His were among the best trained and best conditioned in the entire country, possibly even the whole world, he thought with justified pride. The horses would fail before the men would, so they were, naturally, Taishakuten's primary concern. However, the animals were always kept in excellent fighting condition, so they could maintain a good trot the entire distance.

The king's party would not have made such speed, especially not with Lord Fai with them. They would have dawdled along and enjoyed the ride and the scenery. There had been no hurry, nor any worries, for them. Not until too late.

Two exceptionally trustworthy war wizards rode with Taishakuten. He had held them back from the advance search party specifically to maintain communications with Ateas at the battle site and with the mages left in Vasara. He despised having magicians project their words into his own ears and head. It was unnatural. When necessary, he tolerated it, but for now there was no need to endure it. Ultimately, he preferred that the wizards talk to each other that way and then relay information to him verbally.

He also had some hope—not much, he admitted—that the war wizards might detect and provide warning of a new attack. That seemed unlikely, given what he believed had happened to Ashura's troop, but Taishakuten and his men were forewarned and watching for suspicious activity.

Even at a goodly pace, they took a little over an hour to arrive. During the ride, Taishakuten received a report from Ateas that the king's men had all been found dead. However, neither the king nor Lord Fai had been located. That gave Taishakuten hope that they were still alive. It was only a small hope, though, as it was equally likely that the attackers would have taken the king's body as a trophy. But why take the child, too?

Probably, Taishakuten thought in answer to his own question, Ashura had tried to protect his son, and the attackers had seen that Fai was important.

Ateas also reported that the identity of the attackers had been confirmed. Spent arrows of Arimaspi origin had been found. It was as Taishakuten had feared. The filthy Arimaspi dogs had clearly discovered a way to hide themselves well enough to infiltrate the interior of his lands, and they had dared assault the king, as well.

Taishakuten smiled grimly. He would take care of their little incursion. The Arimaspi fools would beg for death long, long before he was done with them, and what bloody shreds remained would be nailed to posts and displayed prominently at the border as a warning to their repugnant countrymen. With loving thoughts of what he would do to the intruders when he caught them, he picked up the pace.

The troop soon rode through an area of the forest that showed unmistakable signs of recent battle. The underbrush was torn and crushed, exactly as it should have been if mounted men had charged through it without heed. Charred trees had been shattered and felled, and spent arrows littered the land. But that didn't prepare Taishakuten for the devastation that greeted his eyes when he met up with his advance party at the location where Lord Fai had unleashed his power. He dismounted and stared around him.

A wide expanse of the forest had been cleared in a perfect circle. It was large enough that it could easily accommodate an encampment more than double the size of his current force. The wood was pulverized and burned, the larger stones shattered as though by tremendous, internal heat. Some areas of dirt were fused, slick and glassy. Heaps of charcoal, ash, and crushed rock dotted the scorched clearing. The ground was covered with large, broad patches of dark blood. Much of it was congealing into a gummy, sticky mess. Bloody footprints marked the earth not stained in gore.

Traces of smoke mingled with the unpleasant, unmistakable stench of blood and death. The foul odors clung to the surroundings. The outlying trees that still stood were all tilted and leaning to one side, as though a great, forceful wind had rushed in a circle and pushed them all in a spiraling direction.

To one side were piles of maimed, stinking bodies, both of men and of horses. Aside from gaping wounds in their necks, the beasts were relatively intact. However, many of the heads had been hacked from the men. Others had simply been stabbed or had slashed throats.

No animals, birds, or insects were feasting on the carrion, but Taishakuten's wizards had seen massacre sites before and knew to keep the vermin away.

"Rest the horses and men," he ordered the nearest of his captains. "But maintain a state of readiness. We may need to move out again quickly."

Ateas stood with a cluster of mages near the bodies. He hurried over when he caught sight of Taishakuten. "My lord," he said with a bow.

Taishakuten nodded to the grisly heaps of corpses. "Did you find them stacked like that?" He couldn't imagine any reason why the Arimaspi would have bothered.

"No, my lord. They were scattered throughout the area."

Taishakuten almost rolled his eyes. He hoped no useful clues had been lost when the bodies had been disturbed, and said with asperity, "Tell me you examined them before you moved them."

Ateas looked startled. "Of course, my lord, but the only information they yielded was how they died. That is why I felt free to move them. I thought it would be easier to cremate them in a large batch rather than try to dispose of each body individually."

That was practical. Taishakuten nodded acceptance and moved on, asking, "Do you have anything new to report?"

"The magical residue left here belongs to Lord Fai. This...destruction...was caused solely by him," Ateas said slowly. "The sheer intensity of the power released scoured most identifiable esoteric and emotional traces away. What little we have detected leads us to believe that he was hysterical at the time. Not surprising, considering his age, his lack of training, and the battle signs we have found." Awestruck, Ateas shook his head. "I knew he was powerful, but this is amazing."

"So it seems." More terrifying than amazing, Taishakuten thought. He hoped that Ashura would be able to control his child in the future, should they both still live.

Ateas nodded, and went on, "The Arimaspi have covered their traces well." He gestured out to the slanting trees. "About fifty yards beyond this clearing, all trails disappear entirely. No footprints, no hoof prints from their horses, no signs of broken brush—nothing. We cannot even locate any traces by magic. It is the strangest thing."

"Not so strange if you factor in that the Arimaspi mages have developed new camouflage spells," Taishakuten said, taking in the information. It was not unexpected, but he had hoped that the Arimaspi had been more careless and left some small trail. "It might still be in effect, and we know it must be excellently designed. It went undetected even by the king. Ashura is a superb war wizard, and if there had been anything to sense, he would have noticed it. Do you have anything else?"

Ateas looked glum and jerked his head at the piles of bodies. "My lord, you are already aware that the Arimaspi slaughtered the king's men, and that we did not find the king's or Lord Fai's bodies here."

"Yes, yes, go on," Taishakuten said impatiently.

"It seems the Arimaspi were even more thorough than we first thought." He pointed to the dead horses. "My lord, those animals didn't die in battle, or in the explosion of Lord Fai's power. Every horse had its throat slashed wide open. That is why there is such an abnormal amount of blood in the clearing. As you can see, the whole area was awash in blood, like a slaughterhouse." Ateas shook his head. "Such senseless waste. I can understand the men, but why kill all the horses?"

That was obvious to Taishakuten. "Because they didn't want to be burdened with the extra animals, and because they didn't want us to discover what they had done. They couldn't simply tie the horses in place and leave them. Their instincts and training would have sent them home if they managed to get loose. Had even one had found its way back to Vasara, we would have been alerted. So the horses also had to die."

"We were alerted anyway, through Lord Fai's magic."

"True." Taishakuten drew in a deep breath. "But the Arimaspi didn't know about that." He tapped his chin. "We are almost ten miles from Vasara. Maybe they didn't realize our mages would sense Fai's magic from so far away. I have heard often enough from you and others that the Arimaspi magicians tend to overconfidence and are not so talented as our own," he added archly. "I believe you have even called them ignorant."

Ateas didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed at that implied accusation of arrogance. "Yes," he agreed blandly, "I am certain you are correct, my lord. They usually operate more by instinct and gut feel, and lack the deeper, more philosophical and intellectual understanding of mystical workings. However, it would not have occurred to me, either, that magic could be passively, even accidentally, detected from so far away. The weaker mages at Vasara didn't sense it, in fact."

Taishakuten gave him an exasperated look, but otherwise let the snobbishness pass. That new Arimaspi camouflage was not the product of uneducated mages operating by "instinct and gut feel," and he was certain that Ateas knew it. However, it was true that the lesser mages at Vasara hadn't noticed Fai's destructive release of magic, or had felt only a vague discomfort which they had ignored. Besides, Ateas's conceits were well earned by his skill and power, and Taishakuten liked making use of that power.

"Have the magicians and trackers continue their search," Taishakuten ordered. "Leave no avenue of investigation untouched, no matter how unlikely. We must determine the direction the Arimaspi took. They must be encamped somewhere in this wretched forest. We will find them." Then he went to consult with his war leaders about using the extra troops to conduct a wider, more exhaustive search for physical clues.


	56. Chapter 56

Ashura slowly regained consciousness, and rather wished he had not. All about him the world was spinning, and his throbbing head along with it. He felt as though he had been beaten and abused, inside and out. His stomach churned with nausea. He lay helplessly, unable to even make himself try to rise, he was so dizzy and hurt so much. Something around his aching wrists felt heavy, so heavy, and clinked slightly when he tried to move his arms. His ankles were similarly weighted.

Darkness and a sense of cloaking magic surrounded him. And then he noticed his eyes were closed. He opened them and looked around, feeling disquiet pierce his sluggish thoughts as he recognized what he saw.

He was lying on a low cot in a military pavilion tent, with several throw rugs covering the dirt ground. Some simple camp furnishings were scattered about: a few stools, a chest that apparently doubled as a table. They looked Arimaspi. But why—? He pushed himself to his knees and into a pained huddle, and looked down at himself. The heaviness around his wrists and ankles was revealed to be iron manacles that were linked together by lengths of thick chain. His clothing was torn and soiled; cuts and bruises covered his exposed skin. He must have lost a battle and been taken prisoner, then.

By the looks of things, he was now at the mercy of his country's worst enemies.

And with that thought, the previous events all came rushing back in an overwhelming flood: the attack in the Black Forest, Fai's hysterical maelstrom of power that had burned his own and battered him nearly senseless, the warriors who had slaughtered all his men as they lay helpless, his and Fai's capture. He groaned aloud and tried to reach out mystically for a wider sense of his surroundings.

It proved an impossible task. His mind was foggy; his head hurt; his vision blurred, cleared, and blurred again. His emotions were strangely blunted, and he experienced an odd feeling of separation from himself. The dizziness and nausea continued unabated. He pondered his physical and mental symptoms. He was bruised from Fai's hellstorm, but that wouldn't have left him so muddled, nor so helpless and sick, not after a period of rest...

It was some drug, he thought muzzily. Something his captors hoped would keep him from focusing, from connecting to and using his magic. Of course. The Arimaspi knew well of his abilities; they called him Wizard King, Winter King, Witch King, and a host of other accurate, if uncomplimentary, epithets. They would be prepared to hold him, should they ever get their hands on him. Which, unfortunately, they had done.

A sense of déjà vu shuddered through him. His predicament seemed horribly familiar, but his thoughts and memories spun away from his attempts to grasp at them.

He needed to concentrate, to pierce through the fog in his head and manifest a simple detoxification spell to moderate the drug's effects. He always kept one ready, but it was extraordinarily difficult to summon it and he failed at his first few attempts. It was even worse than the times he'd used the spell when he was drunk. He couldn't feel the magic in his core at all, and waves of nausea kept scattering his thoughts. He tried again, turning all his awareness inward, and through force of will managed to kindle a tiny, almost imperceptible ember deep within the center of his being. Working very slowly and carefully, so as to avoid snuffing out that fragile warmth as he drew upon it, he explicitly wrote each spell-rune with the tip of his index finger.

Finally, after much effort, the runes coalesced into a dishearteningly small glyph that glowed softly above his cupped hands. Fortunately, detoxification spells didn't require large amounts of power to function, so he had hopes that it would be adequate. He gathered it in and took it inside himself. The icy sensation of the spell entering his body cleared his head momentarily, but the positive effect was brief and the fogginess slithered back in. The tiny ember of magic went dark and cold, but not before the spell had been set in motion.

He hoped no one had noticed his spell-casting. It seemed unlikely, given the miniscule expenditure of power involved. Probably it would have been lost in the background noise of the magic that cloaked this place. He hoped so, at least until he could defend himself again. From inside the camouflage, the Arimaspi magic was quite noticeable to him, even though he was drugged. Surely his own little spell had gone unremarked amidst the greater magics in the area.

Unless he was being monitored...

Ashura waited with dread, but all he heard beyond the tent's canvas walls were the sounds of the camp: men talking and laughing, horses neighing, clattering noises that sounded like troops moving or packing gear. When no excitement arose during the next few minutes, he breathed a small sigh of relief. Someone would have raised an alarm, had his brief flare of magic been detected. The Arimaspi probably thought him so incapacitated by their drug that they didn't need to magically supervise him. And, he admitted unhappily to himself, they weren't far wrong. He shuddered to think of what his condition might be like if they'd used even a slightly larger dose.

He inhaled deeply against fresh upsurges of dizziness, weakness, and the painful sensation that he might vomit at any moment. Using even that tiny bit of magic had been taxing and had worsened the dull pounding in his skull into a blinding headache that stabbed his brain with every breath. Light and dark flashes streaked across his vision, his muscles twitched, and his stomach roiled.

It would take some time for the detoxification spell to eliminate enough of the poisons from his system to make any kind of real difference. He didn't know what drug had been used on him, but it was strong, and worked in ways his own spell hadn't been designed to combat. He felt both the drug and his spell at war within him, which did nothing to alleviate his nausea.

He held perfectly still, waiting for the effects to abate somewhat, and cursed the unknown drug that kept him so weak. While he waited, he wondered vaguely if he could push through its effects before the detoxification spell finished its work. Probably not, though there was an outside chance that it might be possible. However, in his current state, success would be dangerous. Any destructive magic he manifested while he was so foggy and lacking his full control would probably run away from him, and might even result in wide devastation. Not unlike Fai's hellstorm, only on a smaller scale.

Fai.

Was Fai here, too?

Ashura roused enough from his drug-induced apathy to look about, fighting down the pain and sickness that rose when he turned his head too quickly. Fai was nowhere in sight. Ashura would have panicked if his emotions hadn't been so numbed.

He heard low voices just outside the tent, then a leather-gloved hand pushed the entrance flap aside. An Arimaspi warrior entered, his face hard and bearing an old, thin scar on his left cheek. A high-ranking warlord, Ashura determined from the quality of the man's clothing, chain mail, and accoutrements. Probably the leader of the incursion into the Southlands. His bearing was certainly arrogant enough.

The warlord's cold eyes stared at him. An unpleasant smile twitched on his lips, and then he gave a deep, mocking bow. "Good afternoon, Your Majesty," he sneered. "I see you are awake again, if not terribly alert."

Ashura blinked owlishly and fought to focus on him. There was something oddly familiar about him, something that nagged at Ashura, but he couldn't quite place the man...

The warlord snorted with amused contempt. "When I learned of an armed troop passing through with a noble leader, I couldn't resist sending out my men. I was hoping to catch a griffin, but instead I have snared the Witch King himself." He laughed, an ugly sound. "The gods truly smile upon me this day."

A griffin? He must mean Taishakuten, Ashura thought fuzzily. He recalled his own, earlier suspicions of Taishakuten, and mentally apologized to his absent vassal. Another bolt of pain pounded through his skull. He raised a hand to rub at his aching head, but the simple motion took a lot more effort than he'd expected. Confused, he stared at the heavy manacles on his wrists. In his haziness, he'd completely forgotten that he was fettered.

"The shackles are unbefitting your station, of course, as is the drug." The warlord grinned, showing teeth. "You'll forgive me for taking such extreme precautions, but my men discovered the hard way that your fearsome reputation is well deserved. You were quite troublesome, you know."

Troublesome, troublesome... The word rang through Ashura's muddled thoughts, evoking a sense of recognition and foreboding. A wolf-like countenance flashed by, and a cynical voice rose malevolently from the back of Ashura's head: _"You've proven to be quite troublesome, haven't you? Far more than I expected."_

"Of course, anyone, even a king, who can command such dedicated loyalty from the Griffin of the South must be powerful, with or without magic. But I have forgotten my manners. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Bartatua of Scylurus, loyal servant of His Most Gracious Majesty King Skudra of Arimaspea." He gave another mocking bow, making an elaborate movement with one gloved hand.

All that bobbing up and down was making Ashura even more ill. He closed his eyes and listed to one side, supporting himself on one hand. However, his head was clearing and the pounding in his skull lessening, which must mean his spell was gaining some ascendancy over the drug. He could think rationally again. Equally, his normal emotions were returning, a heady mixture of fear and irritation being the foremost. The detoxification spell was working better than he had expected. Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to blast his way out of captivity soon...

A scraping noise interrupted his thoughts. He opened his eyes to see Bartatua pulling up a stool.

"Actually," the Arimaspi warlord said as he seated himself and leaned forward on his elbows, "my men were a bit too enthusiastic. If I'd been with them, we would have let you and your troop pass unmolested. Our orders were to eliminate or capture Taishakuten and disrupt the defenses here. His magicians we could have handled. Attacking you, though, that cost us most of our mages. Of course, it doesn't seem to have worked out so well for you, either. What was that massive explosion, anyway? A last ditch defense, hmmm?"

Ashura kept his expression blank and vague, which he knew Bartatua would blame on the drug. The man was lying. Taishakuten's death or capture could not possibly be the main purpose of the incursion, although the chains did imply the Arimaspi had planned on taking one or more prisoners. However, killing or imprisoning Taishakuten would not particularly damage the defense of the Southlands. Taishakuten had trained his men too well, and their chain of command was well defined. They would carry on quite adequately until Taishakuten's successor established himself.

Besides, in such an emergency the bulk of the royal army would be ordered to the Southlands to maintain the peace and defend the border until the region stabilized again. None of these facts were secrets. Instead, they were well publicized to discourage just such a scheme.

Ashura also noted that whatever mages remained in the Arimaspi party hadn't identified the true source of the magic that had annihilated their comrades. They still assumed the "Witch King" was the source of their problems, rather than an innocent-looking young boy.

Ashura couldn't sense Fai yet; the drug was still too active. He wondered what had happened to Fai, or if his child even still lived. Though he was desperate to know Fai's situation, there didn't seem to be any way to bring up the subject that wouldn't result in catastrophe for them both. He was certain Bartatua did not plan to restrict the conversation to crude gloating, and didn't want to even imagine what the Arimaspi warlord might do to Fai in a quest for information.

"A pity, losing so many of my mages like that," Bartatua continued. "We have not the excess of talented magicians as your own kingdom. And now I have to make certain inconvenient contingency plans for exiting the Southlands. Despite my men's precautions, the Griffen already has his soldiers and conjurers harrowing the Black Forest for you, and I understand he is on his way to the battle site himself. I'm told he's sealed the border, as well. I am no fool. I know you sent off a warning message before you were taken. There is no other way that Taishakuten could have learned so quickly what happened."

If only that were true, but Ashura had had no time or opportunity for such. The magical shockwave from Fai's maelstrom must have alerted the mages at Vasara.

He looked down at the floor to hide the disdain he knew would otherwise blaze from his eyes. The scarcity of powerful Arimaspi mages was their own cursed fault. The Arimaspi rulers were not magicians. They tended to distrust magic and magicians, so much so that they murdered their most promising infants in the cradle to prevent them from one day rising up and taking the power that should have rightfully been theirs. The only truly strong mages in Arimaspea came from two or three privileged clans, and there were strict cultural, religious, and legal controls over what they could learn and do, and even how they married and had children. Possibly there were other, more direct controls, as well, Ashura speculated glumly, considering the drug that currently kept him helpless.

Probably every mage he had fought earlier in the attack had come from those special clans.

"I'm curious," Bartatua said, "how you managed to see through their camouflage spells. I was assured that the camouflage and energy patterns matched and aligned with the natural magical essences of this land. I don't suppose you'd care to share your secret? Or tell me if any others of your kind can do this, as well? Where there's one, there are usually more. So far, the Griffin's pet mages don't seem capable, but he's a clever bastard, that one. It might be a trick to lull us."

Ah, that confirmed his original suspicions about how and why that camouflage magic worked so well. Ashura noted the information, but stayed silent and kept his gaze fixed on the floor. Only Fai's alien magic and eyes had been able to easily discern it as unnatural, but Ashura was as unwilling to admit that fact to his captor as he was that Fai had been the cause of the conflagration that had destroyed the Arimaspi mages. It would almost certainly sign Fai's death warrant, assuming he wasn't dead already. Better that Bartatua believe Ashura had accomplished those feats, at least until Fai's current situation became known.

Besides, Ashura had been able to detect the magic once alerted to its presence. Probably he could teach others how to do so, as well, and they could devise ways to counter the spells. He could not tell Bartatua anything about that, either. The Arimaspi would use the information to perfect their camouflage. That would be disastrous. Ashura was certain he now understood the true purpose of the expedition, and knew he couldn't allow the Arimaspi to gain any new knowledge.

The incursion was an Arimaspi experiment to test their new weapon, to determine its limits. It was a first step towards the invasion, and eventual conquest, of Seresu...

For a moment, Ashura wondered why Bartatua was revealing important secrets. Perhaps he already thought that Ashura understood the magic's inner workings? Ashura was willing to let him believe anything that might prove advantageous.

Then another thought struck, one that seemed far more likely. Bartatua wouldn't care what he said if he didn't plan to keep his prisoner alive for much longer. Ashura was well aware of the depth of hatred the Arimaspi felt for Seresu, its people and customs, and especially its magical folk. And he was the "Witch King," the living symbol of everything Skudra, Bartatua, and all their ilk despised. Chances were good that Bartatua intended to kill him soon.

Bartatua scowled at the lack of reaction, and his next words confirmed Ashura's worst suspicions about his motives. "You know, King Skudra wants your head," he said conversationally. "He'd rather take it from you himself, but he wouldn't complain too much if I removed it and brought it back to him. That way we wouldn't have to hide you any longer. Beheading you now would certainly be safer and easier than trying to take you back alive, especially given our need for haste and our rather diminished capabilities. For which, I might add, you are to blame."

Ashura barely acknowledged the threat and the Arimaspi warlord's growing impatience with his continued silence. Another memory assailed his thoughts: _"King Skudra wants your head."_ His eyes widened. Now that he could think again, he remembered. At last he recognized the warlord sitting before him. Bartatua himself had spoken those words in a false vision inflicted by the dark sorcerer who sought Seresu's doom and had cursed Fai. It had been almost three months since Ashura had suffered that vision, but now the memory struck him with an almost physical impact. Was it coming true, after all? Had it been real?

No! No, it was just the drug, still affecting his ability to think rationally. Ashura knew that vision had been a lie, nothing more than the dark sorcerer's sadistic, manipulative illusion. It had been designed to make Ashura fear seeking any other destiny than the one the sorcerer had selected for him, and had had no other purpose or reality. It couldn't happen. It was physically impossible, for one thing. Ashura vividly remembered surviving for far too long as a decapitated head. He'd had ordinary, non-prophetic nightmares about that experience for weeks after enduring that false vision.

And yet, some of it had been real. At the time, he'd had the impression that the vision had been partially true. Now parts of it were actually happening. The sorcerer must have foreseen these events and stitched some of them together with unpleasant fabrications of his own to construct that nightmare and give it the veneer of authenticity.

Bartatua surged forward with shocking speed and viciously backhanded Ashura across the face. Ashura fell backward on the cot. The Arimaspi warlord was on him in an instant, his leather-clad hands wrapped around Ashura's throat. The rough grip tightened, and Ashura choked and saw dancing black spots.

"I know you can talk," Bartatua hissed violently, leaning in so close that Ashura felt the spittle spray onto his face. "We are well versed in the administration of the Blessed Venom. You're helpless and befuddled, but you are not mute."

The warlord remained on top of Ashura but released his hold and sat back. "You're nobody special here, King of Seresu," he sneered, giving the title an unpleasant emphasis, while Ashura gasped and caught his breath. "You are nothing but an overpowered, upstart mage, a subhuman enemy fit only to be slaughtered like livestock. My king wants to take your pretty head himself, but as I said, he won't care much if I handle that task for him. He also won't care what I do to you before I finally kill you. He'll reward me lavishly, especially if I'm creative enough. You'd best ponder what hell is like, Witch King."

With that pronouncement, he finally climbed off Ashura and stood over him. The unreasoning anger vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, and Bartatua asked in a perfectly conversational tone, "Now, how many other mages of yours can detect our camouflage?"

But Ashura barely acknowledged the threat from his unpredictable adversary. Instead, he was distracted by a sudden, spontaneous flicker of warmth deep in his core. It shimmered erratically and then was gone, but that small sign told him that his natural connection to his magic was on the verge of returning. He sat up and wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth, keeping his gaze lowered lest Bartatua note the satisfaction in it.

A little longer...just a little longer, and he would teach this stupid, overconfident son of a sow the consequences of meddling with the "Witch King" of Seresu...

A hand flashed out toward his face. Ashura jerked away in alarm, but Bartatua just straightened again. "So it's true," the Arimaspi warlord commented. "That trinket you wear isn't real. My hand passed right through it. My men said so, but I thought they were just afraid of anything to do with you, even though you were unconscious." He smiled nastily. "It would make a fine trophy, but then, so would your head. I wonder, though, will that intriguing bauble remain after your death?"

It would for a time, Ashura knew, possibly for several days, but it would ultimately fade once the last of his magic finally drained away from his lifeless corpse. The diadem was a mystical sign of his dominion over Seresu. He supposed the Arimaspi had previously viewed it as an ordinary crown or headdress, mere spoils to take and display that would demonstrate their success in capturing Seresu's king. The audacity of the scabby pig, to believe he could simply rip it from Ashura's forehead! His own lips twisted into a contemptuous sneer.

Bartatua slapped him so hard his head rocked back. "Don't get uppity, mage," he growled. "Tell me how you saw through our camouflage. Did Taishakuten allow us to slip in, so he could entrap us?" The warlord furrowed his brows and scowled so fiercely the scar on his face puckered. "No, that doesn't make sense. Not with you here. You would never have been used as bait. So I assume that until you blundered through, no one knew we had infiltrated the Southlands, not even Taishakuten's best wizards." His expression became cheerful. "Your silence is not so useful to you, you see. You didn't have to say a thing to tell me some of what I wished to know," he gloated. "A little more, and I won't have to keep you alive at all."

Not that Bartatua planned to let him live much longer anyway, Ashura knew. The poor treatment and the easy chatter about the camouflage magic had already made that fact abundantly clear, and now Bartatua's hatred was rapidly outpacing his sense and reason. Certainly Skudra would enjoy seeing Ashura dragged into the Arimaspi throne room in chains, but Bartatua obviously had no intention of bothering. Ashura's face throbbed from the repeated blows, and he resisted the urge to rub it. He wouldn't give the insolent warlord the satisfaction.

"I would like to know what warned you of our presence, though, and how you knew which direction to attack," Bartatua added. "My men said that you knew they were in the woods, and that you knew where to throw those rather destructive missiles. They also saw some of your guards glance their way as you consulted with them. Even if you can't fully pierce the disguise, you clearly detected some abnormality which gave my men away. You should spare yourself the pain, Witch King. I grow impatient, and I promise I won't continue to be so gentle with you."

The Arimaspi must need to move out very soon, Ashura thought, especially if Taishakuten really was searching already. The sounds he'd heard earlier had seemed to indicate that the Arimaspi were packing up their gear, and now that speculation was confirmed. Bartatua had spoken before of the need for haste. He wasn't only attempting to discover information that would allow the Arimaspi to perfect their magic. He was also trying to verify that his men's movements would not be sensed by Taishakuten's wizards. Their encampment so far was undetected, and he wanted to make sure that state of affairs continued.

Ashura had no intention of supplying any such confirmation, no matter what. Let the whoreson sweat with worry a while longer. Yet, sooner or later, Bartatua would realize the truth, that he and his men were perfectly concealed. That wretched camouflage magic was most effective. Without Fai, Ashura knew his own troop could have easily ridden right through the nest of the Arimaspi without ever noticing until it was too late. Taishakuten's people might scour the entire Black Forest, tree by tree, and never find the Arimaspi encampment.

Ashura's magic flared again, a little stronger and hotter, and vanished once more. How frustrating for it to be so close, almost in reach... But then Ashura wondered if he could reach it, if only he concentrated hard enough. He had reached a tiny bit of it before, when he'd evoked his detoxification spell. He should be able to do so again, especially now that it was flaming to life spontaneously. It was past time to dispose of all the Arimaspi intruders. Ashura had had more than enough of Bartatua's disgusting presence, and he no longer cared if he lost control of any magic he could summon. It would be worth it. At least Taishakuten's mages would be alerted to what had happened. Ashura took a deep breath and prepared to dive down to the root of his soul, where power dwelled, dormant but waiting for its master's call...

"I am not without other options, though," Bartatua said next. "Consider that child."

Shock stopped Ashura in his tracks. "Fai," he whispered involuntarily, and then inhaled as he realized he had exposed them both.

"Is that his name?" Bartatua grinned in triumph. "I understand you protected him right up until the end. Something special to you, is he? I'd heard you'd sired a bastard. I guess it's true." His eyes narrowed, and he inspected his captive closely. "He doesn't look at all like you. Are you sure he's really yours?"

Ashura wanted to scream at him to leave Fai alone, but he knew anything he said would only make matters worse.

The warlord settled back down on the stool. "He was asleep when my men captured you two. Can you imagine that? I suppose you did something to him. How very unfatherly of you." Bartatua scratched his chin. "Naturally, I haven't allowed him to regain consciousness, but since you remain so uncooperative, I suppose that now I must. Talk to me, and I will leave him be. My mages assure me he is a magician born. Quite strong, they say, but you know that. He'll go back with us and be...," Bartatua raised his brows and smirked, "...educated. Imagine, the Witch King's own son, a wizard of Arimaspea and devoted servant to King Skudra. A lovely picture, don't you agree?"

Enslaved, at best, Ashura knew, but most likely Fai would be killed. Once the child awoke in enemy hands he would surely panic again and demonstrate exactly how dangerous he was. Unless that drug kept his power so subdued that the Arimaspi never learned how much strength Fai truly possessed. That was probably why they didn't realize yet that Fai had wiped out their mages. But sooner or later, they would have to stop administering their drug...

Well, at least now Ashura knew his son was still alive. And that meant he had to keep himself alive, as well, for more reason than just to warn his people about the new Arimaspi weapon. He could not make the dark sorcerer's false vision a reality by allowing this Arimaspi dung clot to trigger Fai's second curse prematurely.

For one wild, irrational moment, he wondered if he could barter with the Arimaspi, offer them safe passage out of Seresu in exchange for his and Fai's freedom. Not that he intended to hold by any such bargain. Bartatua's troop could not be permitted to return to Arimaspea. Was Bartatua stupid enough to fall for it? Probably not, Ashura concluded regretfully. That he had thought of it at all was just a sign of his increasing desperation.

His power sparked and flickered again, the heat grown greater than before, but also irregular, like a flame sputtering as it fought to catch hold in damp kindling.

"His future is in your hands," Bartatua said casually. "What would you have me do next? He's an adorable little child. Shall I throw him to my men? Children are quite fragile. They die so easily." Bartatua pulled a knife and leaned in close, too close, his breath hot on Ashura's face. "Or would you rather watch what I, myself, can do to him?" he purred into Ashura's ear with cloying sweetness. "Would you like him to watch what I do to you? Do you think he likes red? It's such an eye catching color." He stroked Ashura's cheek gently with the flat of the blade, pressed the steel-sharp tip against the thin skin beneath one eye, and Ashura couldn't repress a shudder.

The warlord slid the blade lightly down Ashura's face before pulling the knife away. "Oh, I won't mar your face. King Skudra wants your head to be recognizable. I think he's going to have it stuffed and mounted so he can hang it in his throne room." He laughed. "But I wonder how your little boy would look with only one eye?" He leaned in even closer and murmured, "Just tell me how you saw through our magic, pretty king, and I'll spare you both the trauma. Continue your defiance, and I promise many inventive excesses."

"Filth," Ashura snarled softly. It might be his son's destiny to lose an eye one day, but it would not be at the hands of this rabid dog. He felt the fire catch and burn deep inside, rage and terror feeding the waxing, seething heat in the center of his being. The flames rose, and rose, uncontrolled, glorious, the power pervading his whole body with incandescent, white-hot fury. He could almost control it, could almost shape it, not quite, not quite, but almost, almost...in just another few moments he would incinerate the Arimaspi whoreson and all his loathsome bootlickers, then scatter the ashes to the four winds. The encampment lit up in his mind, each enemy position marked, each man, each tent, each horse, each weapon, each stool and blanket and cooking pot...and Fai. Ashura's hate-filled eyes captured and held his tormentor's gaze.

Bartatua drew back. For the first time, uncertainty crossed his scarred features. "You—?" Scowling, he set the knife aside and reached into a pouch on his belt, from which he withdrew a small crystal vial. He removed the stopper and tapped some white powder into his gloved palm. "The Serpent's Blessed Venom," he breathed reverently. "The Bane of Sorcerers..."

Ashura felt his eyes widen. That must be the drug—

Then Bartatua grabbed Ashura's hair and yanked his head forward, shoving the handful of powder into Ashura's face, smearing it into his eyes, nose, and mouth. Ashura screamed as his power erupted and the world exploded.


	57. Chapter 57

Taishakuten had barely ordered his troops to expand the search when Ateas stiffened and uttered a sharp cry. All around the battle site, wizards froze or gasped aloud.

"What now?" Taishakuten angrily exclaimed. He rushed to Ateas's side, grabbed the war wizard's shoulders, and shook him. "Ateas, what's happened? Tell me, curse you!"

The shocked eyes blinked and focused. "My lord," Ateas breathed, clutching at the arms that gripped him. "It was another burst of power..."

"Fai again?" Taishakuten asked, giving Ateas another shake.

"No, not Lord Fai. His earlier outburst was wild and unformed," Ateas said, looking pale, almost afraid. He pulled loose as he regained his composure. "This was different. It was pure killing magic—mature, focused in its intent...I've never felt anything quite like it..."

That had to be Ashura. Taishakuten grinned viciously. "It's about time." When Ateas gave him an inquiring look, he said, "That was the king's magic, yes?" It was more a demand than a question.

The wizard nodded and took a deep breath. "I believe so, yes..."

Pleased to hear the confirmation, Taishakuten called for his horse to be brought to him, then ordered his watching men, "Form up! We ride out immediately. The wizards know the direction." He turned back to Ateas and his other retainers with a surge of anticipation. "Well, gentlemen, shall we go fetch our king?"

A soldier came running, leading Taishakuten's mount. Taishakuten cheerfully grabbed the reins and swung himself into the saddle. He loosened his sword in its scabbard, although he doubted now that he'd need the weapon. Ashura had probably annihilated his captors. Taishakuten commanded part of his troop to remain in the area to deal with any Arimaspi stragglers who might return, then gestured for Ateas to take the lead. "How far?" he asked.

"Not far at all," Ateas said, his eyes fixed on the gloom cast by the thick trees to the southwest. "A few miles at most. The king's magic shattered the Arimaspi illusions and I can now identify their location. But..." He swallowed. "Something's wrong. We should hurry."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure, it just..." Ateas uncharacteristically faltered, his fingers clenching his horse's reins. "...it just doesn't feel right. I can't explain better..."

Taishakuten's good humor evaporated. He frowned, noting the other wizards also still looked shaken, and kicked his horse into a gallop.

The troop raced along a footpath at speed, then were forced to slow to a walk as they turned off the trail and into dense forest. Now that the blanketing illusions and camouflage were vanquished and dispelled, Taishakuten marked the signs that the Arimaspi had traveled the same way: broken branches, disarrayed ferns, hoof prints in the thick needles that carpeted the earth.

Taishakuten considered having some of the wizards and soldiers teleport ahead, but rejected the idea. While he believed the king had probably destroyed the Arimaspi, no one could be sure. That wrong feeling that Ateas had reported didn't bode well. Taishakuten didn't want any of his people landing in a trap. That camouflage magic had been quite the unwelcome surprise. Who knew what other tricks the Arimaspi mages had created?

His men kept the horses to a walk, mindful of hidden obstacles or hollows and holes that might cause the animals to stumble or fall. The trees grew thicker, blocking the afternoon sunlight, and the air seemed to get chillier and chillier.

Taishakuten exhaled and was surprised to see the puff of breath condense into light gray mist. The rapid temperature change wasn't just his imagination. The air really was growing colder. The surroundings were becoming almost frigid.

While he focused on that curiosity, one of his men cried out in alarm: "My lord, it is ice!"

Taishakuten held up a hand and stopped the troop. He peered forward, narrowing his eyes warily at what he saw. Some distance ahead, a few scattered tree branches had been encased in ice. They gleamed with frozen, crystalline beauty. Farther beyond them entire trees were glazed. The bracken beneath them glittered with heavy frost. And there was a strange, blue cast over the frozen plants, some kind of soft, flickering glow.

Ice in midsummer? In the Southlands? It was unheard of. It was impossible.

If he hadn't known better, Taishakuten would have sworn he witnessed a scene from late autumn. Everything in Seresu always began to freeze over then, even the Southlands. But it was not autumn, and he did know better...

"It burns," Ateas said softly, staring forward, his gaze unfocused, as though he were trying to sense something without eyes.

"What?" Taishakuten turned to frown at the wizard.

"Up ahead, my lord. The ice burns."

Taishakuten nudged his horse forward for a better look. Here and there, small, pale blue flames danced atop the ice. That was the blue glow he had noticed. The strange fires gave off no heat at all. Instead, they radiated intense cold.

He compressed his lips tightly for a moment, then signaled for the whole troop to follow him deeper into the ice-covered trees.

They walked their mounts through the evergreens. It was the eeriest ride Taishakuten had ever experienced. His every exhalation condensed into fog. All around them the ice grew thicker, the blue flames brighter and colder. To make the situation even more surreal, the forest was utterly silent, as though no animals or birds lived within it at all.

A haze of reeking smoke drifted before them, billowing through the tree trunks, but other than that wispy movement all remained deathly still. Taishakuten dismounted and handed his horse's reins to one of his men. He gestured for everyone but Ateas and a few guards to stop and wait. Then he and the wizard walked toward the source of the smoke. Foul odors and scorched devastation greeted them.

"By the Nine Realms," Ateas breathed. "What is this?"

"It looks like it was once an encampment," Taishakuten said matter-of-factly. Scattered on the ground among the cold-burning and ice-glazed trees were charred patches and charcoal lumps of various shapes and sizes. Some had the rough outlines of camp tents, others were oval—about a horse's length, Taishakuten judged. A large number were smaller, roughly human-sized, and had odd, misshapen pieces of metal embedded in them. He crouched down beside one. Despite the fact that the clump of debris still smoked ever so slightly, it gave off not heat, but cold. "Like the fires," he murmured.

"My lord?" Ateas asked.

Taishakuten waved his wizard into silence. He removed a leather glove and ran his naked fingertips cautiously around the edge of the charred lump. He inspected the black soot on his hand, rubbed it between his fingers. It stank in a way he knew well from past battles, and felt oily, greasy, like the leavings that fell from burned and blackened meat.

He straightened abruptly. "This used to be a man," he said simply, kicking at the dead offal with one booted foot. He grimaced, finally identifying the metal in the noisome remains as melted chain mail and weapons. He wiped his hand off and replaced his glove, then nodded out to the other charred lumps. "I'd say our king paid the Arimaspi back handsomely for whatever insult they offered him."

Some of the men behind him laughed nervously.

"Ateas," Taishakuten said, "are the king and Lord Fai nearby?"

The wizard stared forward, his gaze was blank and unfocused. "Yeessss..." he said, but his voice was laced with uncertainty.

"Both of them?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"You believe so?"

"They are out there, my lord," Ateas said defensively. "Not far, but... This...the burning ice...the destruction...it is all the king's magic, his doing, but there is something about it that overshadows his exact presence, and...I don't know. Something is strange."

Taishakuten frowned but didn't comment. Everything was strange. No sense belaboring the obvious. He pointed with his chin out toward the rest of the encampment. "Then let's go get them." He ordered half his men to secure the woods and guard the horses. The others he took with him on foot to thoroughly scour the area. "Watch out for survivors that the king might have missed. Don't kill them," he added offhandedly. "I want to interrogate any that survived. Wizards, be prepared for unusual happenings. The Arimaspi mages may have left traps behind."

But it soon became clear that no Arimaspi had survived, and in fact nothing remained that could threaten even a helpless infant. All tents and other structures had been reduced to blackened ruins, all the men and animals to clumps of greasy charcoal. Swords and armor had been melted into near-amorphous steel globs. There was no sign of wood-based weaponry such as spears or bows and arrows, nor any intact camp gear, supplies, or tools, nothing but ashes and metal lumps. Even cook pots and utensils had been slagged and melted almost beyond recognition. And still there was no sound beyond the soft footsteps and quiet murmurs of Taishakuten's men.

"The king must have been furious," Ateas said in a hushed tone.

An understatement if ever there was one, Taishakuten reflected, his keen gaze searching among the debris and the trees for anything living. The size of the encampment dismayed and outraged him. The Arimaspi and their new trick made him look like a blind, incompetent fool. He hoped the king had learned how to find and counter the magic that had permitted such a large force to encroach so far into the Southlands undetected.

His eyes caught a flicker of movement. "There," he said, pointing. "That way. Something moved over there."

As he strode forward, he made out the huddled figure of a man kneeling upon the ground. A shuddering sob stirred the air. Long black hair fluttered.

"King Ashura!" Taishakuten exclaimed, appalled. He lengthened his stride and jogged toward the king.

The king jerked his head up at the call. Taishakuten saw that Ashura's body shook violently. His arms were wrapped tightly around his middle; his face, throat, and wrists were bruised; his lower lip was split open and swollen, with a trickle of red drying on his chin. His skin glistened with sweat and was as pale as if he had been drained of blood. Dull, lifeless eyes in a blank, immobile face stared at nothing, unblinking and blind. Clumps of melted iron lay scattered about him in a rough circle, and just a few feet away from him smoked another man-sized lump of charcoal. Ashes and smoldering earth mapped out the shape of a pavilion tent around him, with more charcoal lumps just outside. The remnants of guards, Taishakuten presumed. Some distance beyond Ashura a lone tent remained standing, completely untouched by fire.

Taishakuten skidded to an abrupt halt as a ring of blue flames burst into life about the king. Unlike the ice-fire in the trees, the fire encircling Ashura burned with searing heat, threatening to incinerate any who dared venture too close.

"King Ashura," Taishakuten called again. He froze as those blank, dead eyes turned blindly in his direction. An indefinable sense of threat rose, and the air grew frigid as a midwinter night. Ashura didn't recognize him, Taishakuten realized with shock. The king would kill him if he made a wrong move.

"What did they do to you, Majesty?" he asked softly, careful to stay absolutely motionless. It was a rhetorical question; obviously, Ashura was in no condition to answer.

He heard a gasp next to him, and barely managed to fling out an arm in time to stop Ateas from rushing forward. "Keep still, you fool!" he hissed.

"But the king—"

"Do you want to die?" Taishakuten snarled. He turned his head and ordered his men, "Stay back, all of you!"

He immediately regretted raising his voice. The flames encircling Ashura raged higher and with terrible intensity. The ice-fire that glazed every tree grew brighter and stronger, radiating cold in penetrating, frozen waves. Taishakuten winced at the extreme, contradictory sensations of biting cold and scorching heat that assailed his unprotected face.

"My lord, we have to do something—" Ateas began.

"Look at him. He doesn't even know who he is, let alone who we are." Taishakuten's brows furrowed. "He'll kill us all if we get too close."

Ateas subsided. He asked quietly, "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. The Arimaspi must have done something to him. Everyone, back away. Slowly."

Once the men had retreated far enough, the burning ice-fire diminished back to its previous levels. The flames about Ashura also died down. They didn't fade entirely, but they no longer menaced everything in their vicinity.

Ashura stayed huddled on his knees, unnaturally still. His unseeing gaze was focused on nothing in particular, but his face remained turned in their direction.

That blank non-expression made the hairs on the back of Taishakuten's neck rise up. It was an unaccustomed sensation. He had encountered very little in his life that disturbed him much, and had done a great many things that others considered inhumane and inhuman without the smallest sense of guilt or remorse. Yet Ashura's utter lack of human reaction unnerved even him. The way the king tracked their every move...

"My lord," Ateas whispered, "what are we to do? We cannot leave him out there like that, but his magic...he has perfect, precise control over it. You are correct; he can destroy us. He has us marked. I can feel it. Just one burst of power from him could annihilate us all, just as it did the Arimaspi." The wizard broke off and stared out at the king. "He is not in his right mind. He reacts, but does not seem to initiate action. As long as we don't provoke him..."

Taishakuten tapped his chin, thinking. He wondered how long Ashura would remain deranged. He might snap out of his deadly fugue when whatever the Arimaspi had done to him faded. Unfortunately, without knowing what had caused the king's distress, there was no way of predicting how long the effects would last, or if they would dissipate at all. Perhaps only the healing mages could help him.

"He only raised his defenses when we ran toward him. He must have felt threatened," he mused. "He did lower them somewhat when we retreated." He looked to Ateas. "Could you and the other wizards combine your magic to shield us and take him down while he's like this?"

Ateas's lips tightened into a thin, white line. "I don't know," he said uneasily. "Probably not."

"Kendappa said the court wizards could break through his defenses by working together."

"The court wizards are the greatest in all the land, yet I do not believe even they could do it without incurring casualties," Ateas said. "My lord, we are your best wizards, but... He's very powerful, far more so than any of us. He marks us using techniques I cannot fathom, and even though his mind is disordered, he is on guard now. He might strike out the instant we attempt to raise the kind of power needed. He would likely destroy all the wizards before we could even finish our spells."

Taishakuten made a disgruntled noise. He didn't want to lose any of his war wizards unless absolutely necessary. It sounded like it wouldn't take much to trigger Ashura to lash out. Once provoked, he might not stop at just the wizards, either.

There was also the king's reaction to take into account. Ashura would never forgive himself for such an act once he regained his senses. Yet there seemed no other way to approach the king. What could reach him while he was in such a state?

"What about summoning help from Vasara?" he asked next. "By now probably every court wizard in Luval is there." In fact, he was a little surprised they hadn't already landed in the middle of this mess. Maybe they hadn't sensed Ashura's outburst—all the wizards at Vasara had claimed it was unusual to sense magic from so far away. And even if they had, likely Kendappa and Syed had convinced them to hold off until they had more definite news of the situation. In any case, it was just as well. The sudden, unexpected arrival of so many powerful wizards might well have precipitated a catastrophe...

He said slowly, "Maybe we could send for Kendappa. He listens to her."

"I don't think such a summons would escape the king's notice," Ateas said. "A magical whisper shouldn't trouble him, I think, but a whisper is only good for close-range communications. It would not be heard across the long distance. Yet a shout to Vasara might trigger the king's defenses again. He might attack if he perceived it as a threat."

Taishakuten gnawed his lower lip. Perhaps if they all retreated far enough, out of whatever zone Ashura was monitoring, the wizards could safely call Vasara. But now that the king had been disturbed and was actively watching them, that might be an unreasonably large distance. They might end up riding halfway to Vasara before Ashura relaxed his vigilance. Taishakuten disliked the idea of leaving Ashura alone while he was so compromised. The king seemed quite capable of defending himself, true, but suppose his unnatural awareness didn't last? He looked on the verge of collapse. Probably only instinctive self-preservation and an iron will held him upright.

Taishakuten considered just waiting Ashura out. Judging from the king's appearance, sooner or later his body would fail him and he would lose consciousness. But that might take a long time. Ashura was undoubtedly drawing on esoteric reserves to keep himself aware. Besides, who knew what he might do if he felt himself fainting? He wasn't rational, and might decide to eliminate everyone in the vicinity.

The longer they waited, the more dangerous the situation became for all of them. And Fai also needed to be considered. They didn't know how the child fared, and they couldn't leave him alone with the deranged king. Probably it would be all right; no matter what his state of mind, Ashura would never hurt Fai, and yet...

Taishakuten inhaled sharply.

"We need Ashura's cub," he said. Fai was the perfect solution. Ashura doted and obsessed over his child. Surely he would listen to Fai's pleas, and drop his defenses for Fai's sake. Taishakuten turned to his men. "I need the three best woodsmen to go to that tent over there and fetch Lord Fai. Ateas, you will go with them. There may be magical difficulties. All of you, be stealthy and stay out of the king's sight, but be quick."

"How do you know Lord Fai is there, my lord?" one of the men asked.

"It's the only intact structure in this entire camp," Taishakuten said impatiently. "Of course he's there."

Ateas said, "The king may not allow us to approach Lord Fai."

That was certainly a possibility. If Ashura got an inkling of their activities, he would probably do something to protect the tent. He might simply put a ring of fire around it, but there was also a distinct chance that he might incinerate everyone present for daring to go near his precious son. The burning ice and the defensive flames indicated that he was still prepared to use fire as a weapon.

Taishakuten cursed the Arimaspi. This was all their fault.

"I will focus his attention upon myself. He didn't attack before, so I do not believe he will attack me this time as long as I do not make any hostile moves. I may even be able to calm him somewhat," Taishakuten said more confidently than he felt. "While I engage him, the rest of you will retreat into the woods. Make sure everyone falls back as far as necessary for the king to lose interest in you. It may be quite some distance, but the wizards will know when you have gone far enough." He hesitated, thinking, then added, "You may even have to retreat beyond the original battle site. In that case, be sure to take the men we left there with you. None of you must remain within the king's range."

He turned to Ateas and the three woodsmen. "That is when you will go. Bring Lord Fai back to this location. Ateas, let me know when all this is accomplished and I will rejoin you. Use that magical whisper you claimed would not trouble the king," he added with a grimace of distaste. He hated the necessity of utilizing the kind of esoteric communication that he usually avoided, but there was no other choice.

"Yes, my lord," the wizard said obediently.

"And Ateas, be very careful," Taishakuten warned as another potential problem occurred to him. "Lord Fai may be as crazed as King Ashura. I am concerned that we haven't heard any sound from him. He may only be hiding or unconscious, but best to be prepared. Remember the destructiveness of his earlier outburst, and treat him with caution."

The men melted away. Perhaps they wouldn't have to go too far. It was difficult to hide such a large troop, but the Black Forest was dense, and with luck Ashura would no longer consider them a threat once they were far enough beyond the encampment. He would have other issues to contend with. At least, so Taishakuten hoped.


	58. Chapter 58

Taishakuten let out a long exhalation, knowing he needed to make himself appear as non-threatening as possible. His reputation made that a difficult task. It forced some obvious precautions upon him, however little he liked them. Grinding his teeth, he unbuckled his sword belt and laid it upon the ground, then removed the knives and other weapons he always carried, along with some outer pieces of armor. Without his usual armament, he felt as though he were naked.

Experiencing unaccustomed and unwelcome reluctance, he slowly walked forward, back into the burned-out camp.

"King Ashura," he called as he came closer to the circle of fire. "Your Majesty, it is I, Taishakuten. You know me." The flames hissed and flared briefly, then settled back down to their previous level. Taishakuten took that as a positive sign.

He stepped smoothly to the side, and held his breath as Ashura's empty gaze followed him.

"That's right," Taishakuten muttered, "you just keep watching me." He continued to sidle around the boundary of the fire, drawing Ashura's attention away from the tent. The king's head swiveled as far as it could in his direction, yet Ashura didn't shift from his kneeling position. Taishakuten wondered if he couldn't move, or if he just couldn't be bothered. When he judged that Ashura could no longer see the tent, Taishakuten walked a little closer to the fire. Ashura's expression remained empty and blind, but Taishakuten swore he could feel the king's attention sharpen upon him. There was such a strange pressure, an itching on his skin... And although he faced only one man, he felt as though he were ringed by ravenous wolves.

"Majesty, you know me," he repeated as he took another careful step closer. "I am not your enemy. You have destroyed your enemies. They are gone. There is no danger. You are safe."

The king just stared blankly.

Taishakuten spread his hands, palms out. "I am unarmed, Your Majesty. I mean you no harm. I've come to take you back to Vasara."

The fires spat again. Taishakuten felt a burst of heat and burning cold, but it passed swiftly. "We can go anywhere you wish," he amended hastily. "I can take you all the way back to Luval, if that is your desire."

The flames calmed.

It made sense, Taishakuten reflected, that the king wanted to go home. He was mentally compromised, operating on an instinctive level, and Luval was his home and where he felt safest. Taishakuten still planned to return to Vasara as soon as he got Ashura under control, but he knew better than to admit it again.

He crouched down so that he was eye level with Ashura, and started talking. He spoke about any topic he could think of that might stir the king's memory: the state of the realm, the preparations for Sun's Wending, even Kendappa's harp music. He specifically avoided mention of the Arimaspi, and of Fai. He wanted the king distracted from Fai for as long as possible.

Where, he wondered even as he babbled at the mute king, were his men? They seemed to be taking an awfully long time to fetch one little child. Was there some problem? Was the king sufficiently distracted? Had Ateas and his men even had the opportunity to make their way to Fai yet? Or had Ashura already destroyed them all, in utter silence and without even blinking an eyelash?

No, Taishakuten told himself, Ashura wouldn't kill his own people, not like that. Taishakuten had observed and analyzed the king's behavior and emotional reactions for many years, and knew it wasn't in his nature...but what if he didn't even recognize them as his people? At the moment, it was impossible to predict what he might do, simply out of sheer instinct or mindless reaction.

The king's head snapped around toward Fai's tent.

Taishakuten broke off speaking, fearing that his thoughts had somehow been communicated to Ashura. Could the king read minds while in this state? He had never heard of any wizard being able to do that, but this situation was so abnormal... Then Taishakuten realized that Ateas and the others must have done something to attract the king's notice. Perhaps Ateas had been required to perform some magic, or worse, perhaps Fai had become alarmed or distraught. Ashura hadn't shown any interest in the men's doings before, seemingly content to listen to his liegeman's random chatter, but now he was too intently focused on the tent for Taishakuten's liking.

"King Ashura!" he said sharply. He jumped up from his crouch and darted closer to the fire, deliberately making the motion as sudden and eye-catching as possible. "Majesty!"

Ashura's head jerked back to him.

Taishakuten caught his breath, but nothing happened. No thunderbolts struck him, no flames burst around him to incinerate him. Ashura just stared at him.

The king didn't seem inclined to attack, but there was no guarantee of what he'd do if he decided that his son was threatened. However, Ashura also seemed easily diverted. That was both good and bad. It meant that Taishakuten could keep him preoccupied, but also that any untoward happenings at Fai's tent could recapture his attention. Taishakuten hoped that whatever Ateas and his men had done to disturb the king would not be repeated.

He kept Ashura's attention fixed upon himself by randomly talking while pacing to and fro, swinging his arms and gesturing, and sometimes making unpredictable darting motions to one side or the other. He felt ridiculous, but also vindicated when the king followed everything he did. He continued to speak of anything pleasant that came to mind. It was hard work for him; he wasn't normally given to pointless gabble, but he remembered some of his more garrulous vassals and did his best to imitate them.

Through it all the king only stared vaguely. It was eerie, unnatural. Ashura's expression never changed, his eyes never blinked, never even shifted from their fixed position, though his head turned, tracking Taishakuten's every move. At least the king seemed to have forgotten the doings at the tent. That provided Taishakuten with more confidence that his plan would be successful.

Taishakuten decided that Ashura probably couldn't concentrate well enough to follow more than one diversion at a time. The king wasn't thinking, just reacting, and physically he really did appear to be on the ragged edge of collapse. He wasn't shaking so badly now, but he had grown paler, his skin damper, his breathing shallower. He kept his arms wrapped about himself, and still maintained his huddled posture. Despite that, he gazed steadily at Taishakuten, seeming to stare right through the warlord.

There appeared to be no trace of the man Taishakuten knew. Yet Taishakuten wondered if, on some level, Ashura recognized him. The king made threats, but so far hadn't done harm to any of his own people. Taishakuten could tell that Ashura was aware of him, heard every word he said, and yet did nothing but observe him. The itching sensation continued unabated, but that was all. As long as Taishakuten stayed outside the established boundaries, Ashura took no further actions.

At last he felt a tickle at the base of his skull, and a disembodied voice whispered, barely discernable, in his ear, "Lord Taishakuten, we have returned..."

Finally, he thought, but did not relax. Underneath Ateas's words there was an uneasy sensation, and an urge for haste.

What had gone wrong now? He glanced warily at the king, but there was no change. It seemed Ateas had been correct, and that Ashura either hadn't noticed the whispered magical communication, or he hadn't viewed it as a danger and so hadn't cared about it.

"Your Majesty, I must leave you for a while." Taishakuten bowed slowly, hoping the familiar gesture would ease the king's tension. "I will return shortly. Wait for me," he added unnecessarily. It was obvious that Ashura wasn't going anywhere.

Taishakuten backed away with measured steps. Only when several frozen trees obscured his sight of the king, and the itching of his skin faded, did he turn and hurry back to the location he had specified to his men.

He found Ateas and the three woodsmen waiting for him. Ateas held Fai in his arms. The boy was unmoving and deathly pale, even paler than the king, and also drenched in sweat. His golden hair was wet, lank, and clung to his scalp. Taishakuten felt his hopes fade. Was Fai even alive?

One of the men said, "We found him, my lord. You were right, he was in that tent. We also found two more corpses within. They weren't burned as completely as the others, they still had human form." The woodsman looked amazed. "They were the only things touched by fire, my lord. There wasn't a stray scorch mark on anything else, not even the floor where they lay."

"Ashura is always precise when it counts," Taishakuten remarked. He eyed the limp form in Ateas's arms and said roughly, "He'd better not be dead."

"No, my lord," said the woodsman. "He only sleeps. We cannot wake him."

Ateas shifted Fai to one arm, and held out a stoppered, crystal vial of white powder with the other. "I believe this is the reason. It was all over the tent when we arrived."

Taishakuten took the vial and eyed it.

Ateas continued, "The vial must have shattered when the men inside combusted. One of them must have been holding it or standing near it at that time."

"You think this is what is affecting Lord Fai?" Taishakuten shook the vial.

The wizard protested, "Be careful with that, my lord!"

Taishakuten stilled his hand. "You said it was all over everything. Then why weren't you affected?"

"We were very careful, my lord. I risked putting a light shield around the tent to contain any traps or surprises within before we even looked inside. That is when I saw the powder. I reconstructed that vial and gathered the powder into it before we entered." He paused thoughtfully. "Fortunately, the king did not notice my use of magic."

"He noticed it," Taishakuten said with a raised eyebrow, remembering how the king's head had swiveled around to the tent.

Ateas paled and swallowed as he digested that alarming information and the potential consequences. "He didn't attack us..."

"I distracted him. And...he might still have some small glimmer of awareness of who we are, I think. He watched, but he didn't do anything. Also, I don't believe he can stay too focused on much of anything for very long right now. He is exhausted and barely conscious. It was easy to draw his attention away from you." Taishakuten weighed the vial in his hand. "Do you know what this substance is?"

"I am not certain. There are unsubstantiated whispers of a drug the Arimaspi use to control the more...unruly...of their own mages and keep them obedient. It is said to come from the far southern lands in the desert of firedrakes. I had always discounted the stories—they seemed more like absurd fantasies told to frighten children. In any case, I am certain that this powder was used on the king. His physical symptoms—pale skin, sweating, just like Lord Fai—would indicate such."

"King Ashura is hardly in an obedient frame of mind," Taishakuten said dryly, but he regarded the little vial with more respect. He carefully placed it in his belt pouch.

"I was only speculating, my lord. I did say that all I had heard were rumors," Ateas replied mildly. "This substance may be something else entirely. However, whatever it is, its effects are undeniably severe."

"Why isn't King Ashura unconscious, like Lord Fai?"

"The king is very powerful and highly trained, and knows many spells against poisons. He must have used one to purge the drug and to remain conscious." He shrugged. "Any well-trained mage would have attempted something of the sort under such circumstances, although considering this drug's apparent potency, I suspect few, if any, would have been as successful."

"Oh?" Ateas had a peculiar definition of success. Taishakuten said sourly, "His spell does not seem to have worked as intended."

"There's no telling what other interactions may be involved," Ateas explained. "He could have been driven to fight too soon, before this substance was cleared from his system. The result of that would have been unpredictable. He also might have accidentally blown up a vial and inhaled the powder when he ignited his captors, taking in more than his spell could fully counteract. Or the Arimaspi could have simply given him too large a dose. In any case, the drug is certainly still working within him, but the spell appears to hold its worst effects at bay and is allowing him to maintain his defenses." He made an unhappy face. "We should be thankful he has such excellent control. It could have been much worse."

"How?" Taishakuten asked incredulously.

"He could be completely irrational. At least he isn't lashing out indiscriminately or allowing his power to run wild, although he appears to be balanced on a knife edge. I fear it wouldn't take much to tip him over that edge." Ateas looked down at the unconscious boy he held. "I am concerned about Lord Fai. His heartbeat and breathing are too slow, and his skin is too cool. The powder was in the air and all over everything in that tent. I am certain he took in too much of that drug, and he is so young."

The implication was deadly for all of them. "How long will he be like this?" Taishakuten asked.

Ateas glanced away. "My lord, I cannot say. He and the king need a healer."

"Can't you do something?" Even as he asked, Taishakuten knew the answer would be negative. Expecting battle, he had brought dedicated war wizards, not healers. Casualties could be transported back to Vasara by the war wizards after the fighting was over. Few magicians had the ability to bridge the gulf between combat and healing magic, or the wide breadth of training required. Those who could manage a little of both were too weak magically to be very effective in a pitched battle.

"Healing magic is not my expertise," Ateas confirmed with a sigh. "Forgive me for failing you, my lord."

Taishakuten looked from his grim wizard to the child in his arms. Fai was limp and unnaturally still. He looked as though he might expire at any moment. Taishakuten rubbed his face and silently cursed all the filthy Arimaspi and their vicious machinations to the foulest of hells. He had wanted to make use of Fai, had hoped Fai would talk to Ashura, that maybe the child's pleas could convince the king to drop his defenses and allow himself to be led home. But now... If Fai died and Ashura somehow sensed it...

Even forewarned, Taishakuten doubted he and his men would be able to flee far enough, fast enough, to avoid the resulting conflagration. As it was, the king looked ready to burn the entire forest to the ground.

The ice-fires flared, the tongues of cold, blue flame blazing to twice their previous height. The air temperature dropped sharply. Everyone jumped as the fires gave off a sudden shower of crackling sparks.

Ateas's head jerked toward the Arimaspi camp. "He knows," the wizard whispered. His fingers tightened on Fai's unmoving form. "The king has realized that Lord Fai is gone. He's searching..."

It was time to make a virtue of necessity. "Give him to me," Taishakuten ordered, and took Fai into his arms. The boy's sweat-damp skin felt like ice. He lolled like a broken doll, his limbs dangling lifelessly. Taishakuten shifted his hold so that Fai's head rested against his shoulder. "Wait here. Be ready to provide assistance if I am successful, but also be prepared to run as fast as you can if this doesn't go well."

"My lord, what do you plan to do?"

"I intend to lure and capture a king. Maybe when he sees his son, he'll relax enough for that damned drug to knock him out." He pivoted and headed back toward the fire—metaphorically and literally, he thought with a certain amount of gallows humor.

"King Ashura!" he called as he reached the defensive circle of flames. He needn't have bothered saying a word. Ashura's glazed eyes had already locked in his direction, staring with unwavering intensity. Cold radiated off him. The temperature plunged so much that a flurry of tiny ice crystals suddenly glittered in the air around him and drifted downward, where they were annihilated by the hot, blue fires. Taishakuten saw his own breath freeze right in front of his face, and had to contain a near overwhelming urge to just drop Fai and run for his life.

He held his ground. "Sire, you must let me approach. I have Fai."

Something flitted across Ashura's face. It was too much to hope for reason, but the sign of life was promising. Taishakuten said again, "I have Fai. He still lives. Don't you want to see him?"

Ashura continued to stare. The flames rippled. Taishakuten dared to step closer. "Lower your defenses, Majesty, and I will bring Fai to you." He held his breath, waiting.

For an agonizing eternity, nothing happened. Ashura remained motionless. Then, slowly, the flames that surrounded him flickered and died away. The strange dichotomy of hot and cold dissipated and the temperature returned to normal.

Taishakuten took all that as tacit permission and cautiously walked forward, clutching his burden tightly and keeping a wary eye on the king. Ashura still didn't move. Even his shaking had ceased. He scarcely breathed, and continued to gaze at Taishakuten without recognition. That was worrisome, but at least he no longer exuded that terrifying sense of threat.

The warlord took another step, then another, and another, steadily coming closer and closer, until at last he stood within the circle of charred earth, directly before his king. He knelt and bowed his head. "Your Majesty," he said in a tone calculated to sound as submissive as possible, and looked up. Ashura remained frozen, still and cold as a marble statue.

Taishakuten leaned forward and shifted Fai toward Ashura. "Your son, Your Majesty," he said, holding the limp child out like an offering.

Ashura trembled. And then, at long last, he moved. With jerky, painful movements, he gathered Fai into his arms and cradled the boy against his chest. His eyes were still glazed, but no longer blank or blind as they looked down at Fai. They closed a moment, then reopened.

The show of emerging humanity encouraged Taishakuten to press forward with his agenda. "Majesty, we cannot wake him. We must take him home so the healers can tend to him. You must come with us."

Ashura didn't seem to hear. He didn't look up or give any other sign of acknowledgement. Instead, he pressed a kiss to Fai's sweaty forehead. Then he shifted Fai to one arm, and brought his free hand to his own abdomen.

A soft, bluish glow emerged from him. Taishakuten saw the outline of an elaborate pattern shimmering within the eldritch light. But something about it seemed incomplete; it had sharp edges as though a blade had cleaved it. Ashura cupped it in his hand and blew on it, making it grow larger, and the sharp edges smoothed over. He then placed the radiant glyph against Fai's stomach. With fascination, Taishakuten watched the blue glow sink into the boy and vanish.

Fai took a deep breath and stirred slightly.

Ashura stroked the child's damp hair. His own eyelids fluttered. He dropped his hand and gazed down at Fai's face. Then, without warning, he slumped and collapsed to one side.

"King Ashura!" Taishakuten exclaimed in alarm. He lunged forward and caught both the king and Fai, and eased them to the ground.

Fai breathed deeply and evenly. His color improved, and he murmured something unintelligible then subsided. He seemed to be sleeping almost normally.

But now it was Ashura who was as still as death.


	59. Chapter 59: Part VI: Choices

**Part VI: Choices**

Ashura stood at the fork in the road and contemplated his paths to two divergent futures. One branch was strong and glowed brightly. In the near term it showed life and happiness. Farther away, much farther, in the long distance of many years, it became submerged in a river of blood. It led to horror. And then it ended. Everything ended.

And yet, it didn't give off any sense of regret.

The other branch was thin and broken. It flickered and radiated pale, sickly light. Soon it would fade and disappear completely. Until then, it also led to horror: just as poignant, just as painful, but smaller and much nearer in time. But it was horror all the same. Beyond that, in the many years to come, there would be continued life. Yet it was joyless. There was something twisted about that future existence, something despairing, and Ashura hadn't seen its ultimate, final outcome. Perhaps the second path also led to the end of all things. It certainly wept hard enough.

The forked path was no longer disguised, no longer cloaked in shrouds meant to blind him, to keep him from finding alternatives. He supposed it no longer mattered. He knew of its existence now, of the possibilities it revealed, and so there was no longer any reason for the dark sorcerer to maintain those spells of concealment.

Ashura considered the path to the second future for a long time.

Then he turned away from it and walked toward the river of blood.


	60. Chapter 60

Fai floated peacefully in the borderland between sleep and waking. He felt warm and cozy. He didn't want to wake, didn't want to do anything but enjoy the feeling of intense well being. He sensed the king's magic glowing within him. It was doing something inside him, something that made him feel good. He didn't question it, but instead wrapped his dream awareness around it and hugged it tightly to his soul. It reassured him, made him feel safe, and secure, and wanted, and even loved.

Through the fuzziness of semi-wakefulness, he felt a hand stroke his hair. It felt good, too, and added to his sense of reassurance and comfort.

"Poor little child," a feminine voice said from somewhere above him.

"He'll be fine," another woman's voice said, closer than the first. The hand stroked his hair again. "The king saved him. Impulsive fool." The final words sounded both sad and affectionate.

He knew that second voice, but it was too much trouble to remember her face.

There was a moment of quiet, then the first woman asked, "Has...has there been no change at all, then, my lady?"

A hesitation, then, "None. He still...sleeps."

"For how much longer?"

"No one knows." The familiar voice sounded uncertain.

There was something they weren't saying. Fai thought about frowning at the words they spoke, but any effort was too much and his face remained relaxed. He wondered who they were talking about. Not him. He wasn't really sleeping. Was he?

The warm core of the king's magic inside him faded and shrank a little. In its wake it left him feeling happier, and more aware, less lethargic. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the sensation of air in his lungs.

The hand moved from his hair to his forehead. Another hand rested on his tummy. Fai felt a gentle pulse of magic. It touched the king's then withdrew. The familiar voice said, "The spell has almost played out," and both hands were removed. "I believe he'll fully waken soon. I'll go recall his physicians, then I shall attend upon the king." A hand stroked his hair again. "Stay with Lord Fai."

"Yes, my lady. I hope they both wake soon."

"I, also."

He heard retreating footsteps. He wanted to open his eyes, to speak, but his body was too comfortable to move. There was a misty surface somewhere above him, of cottony warmth and soft clouds and light. He knew he should reach for it, past it, but he wasn't ready to work that hard. He didn't really want to wake up, not yet. He instead curled around the king's magic, and let it lull him back into pleasant twilight.


	61. Chapter 61

"At least now we know why the border has been so quiet this year," Vainamoinen said, drumming his fingers on the table. "Our complacency was our undoing. The Arimaspi tricked us into a false sense of security so they could test their new magic unhindered."

It was midmorning, and he and the rest of Seresu's Council of Nobles and court wizards sat or stood along one side of the long table in the largest of Castle Vasara's private meeting chambers. Taishakuten, Ateas, and Taishakuten's senior warlords and mages were on its other side. The seat at its head was conspicuously empty. Its rightful occupant, the king, was unconscious, and had been so since the rescue the previous day.

Vainamoinen shifted in his seat and glanced at the empty chair to his left. He continued with a sigh, "It seems the Arimaspi have been spending their time determining how easily they could slip into and out of the Southlands using their new concealment spells. Who knows how many times they've done it undetected? Even with the heightened security due to the king's visit, their new magic seems most efficacious."

It was an inauspicious way to begin the meeting. Stung, Taishakuten shot him a venomous glare, but Vainamoinen blithely ignored it. Clearly, the head councilor had a thick skin. Probably thicker than Taishakuten's own. Undoubtedly due to all that time he spent at the royal court. No one could survive there for long unless they cultivated a certain callousness to personal insult and even the occasional threat.

"That is obvious in hindsight," Taishakuten said, letting a little of his annoyance creep into his tone. "Equally obvious is that my warlords and I will review the existing defensive measures, reinforce the weak areas, and add new safeguards. Security will be increased, my lord, never fear."

"I intended no insult to you or your people," Vainamoinen said, giving him a direct look. "There was nothing you could have done to prevent this. Not even the court wizards could locate His Majesty until he destroyed the magical camouflage from within." He shrugged in defeat. "Even King Ashura apparently didn't spot the Arimaspi until too late. No one could have detected this incursion without some kind of advance warning."

Suhail said, "We will not know for certain how he did finally learn of the incursion until he or Lord Fai awakens. It is possible he never did notice it, and that the attack upon his party came as a complete surprise."

That mollified Taishakuten only slightly. Despite the forgiving words, he knew that none would ever forget that the king's brother had died on the border of the Southlands. Now the king and his son had also almost died, this time deep in the interior of Southlands. That didn't look good to anyone. At best it made Taishakuten appear incompetent, and at worst... Well, all knew that the regions on the border with Arimaspea could be hazardous, but until now the well-protected interior had been presumed to be safe.

"Perhaps the king can teach our mages how to detect this new camouflage magic," a councilor said.

"Does he show any signs of waking soon?" another councilor asked hopefully.

Vainamoinen dropped his eyes and shook his head. "No, none. The healers only advise that we be patient and wait until his detoxification spell either succeeds or fails. They still insist they dare not intervene."

"It is most unfortunate that he pared that spell in two and kept part of it inside himself," Suhail said.

"He might have died otherwise," Taishakuten protested. "Even with the portion the king kept for himself, he looked half dead. Without it—"

"I am not saying it wasn't a good instinct on Ashura's part to keep some of the spell," Suhail replied calmly. "He was in no condition to create a brand new one for either Lord Fai or himself. I only meant his action is unfortunate for us now. What he did was unprecedented, and no one knows exactly how his part of the spell will behave. It appears to be working properly at present, but no mage has done such a thing before and we have no basis for comparison. Lord Fai's piece is working correctly, so we hope His Majesty's will also continue to do so. But even if that were not at issue, the unpredictability of the cloven spell prevents the healing mages from setting their own spells within him to deal with that drug, and it also prohibits us from teleporting him back to Luval."

Taishakuten didn't need to hear the repetition. Right after Ashura had collapsed in the devastated Arimaspi camp, Ateas had sent a call back to Vasara for help. An impressive eight court wizards, including Suhail, had been waiting for that call and had immediately arrived, carrying several healing mages with them. They had examined the king and Fai, and had confirmed Ateas's theory that Ashura had used a detoxification spell on himself to counteract the drug's effects. They had also discovered that Ashura had somehow divided his spell and put the greater portion into Fai, and that he had retained only a small fragment of it for himself, just enough to keep him alive. Barely.

It had been working within him for some time, and was thoroughly entwined inside him. Not knowing how the spell fragment would behave, none of the healing mages had dared interfere with it. That had included using magical forms of transportation, such as teleportation. They had only been willing to heal the king's external, physical injuries so he could be moved in non-magical ways. For the same reason, they had decided that it was unwise to teleport Fai, as well.

Taishakuten and Suhail had carried Ashura and Fai respectively with them on horseback until they reached a decent road. Then the wizards had secured the most comfortable wagon they could magically find to transport the king and his son, and the troop headed home. The pace had been careful and plodding, with unending worry and the healers constantly checking on their unresponsive royal patients. It had been a very long trip back to Vasara.

Fortunately, the portion of the spell that Ashura had given Fai worked excellently well. There was no doubt that Fai would make a complete recovery. Now if only the king would also show signs of recovering, but so far he remained comatose.

"At least we have a sample of the Arimaspi drug now," Ateas said.

"Yes, that drug," Suhail said, steepling his fingers. "The royal apothecaries and healing mages are still analyzing it, but it has a few properties that confound their efforts. That is probably a major reason why the king's detoxification spell has been taking so long to clear it from his and Lord Fai's bodies. That, and the fact that neither of them has a complete spell working within them." He heaved out a weary breath. "At least the spell does work against it, albeit slowly." He leaned forward on his elbows. "You say this drug has been rumored to exist before now?"

"Just vague stories that sometimes circulate in the farming communities and small hamlets nearest the border," Ateas said, a trifle defensively. "Nothing substantial. In the stories, it is usually called the Serpent's Blessed Venom. To be honest, the tales always sounded more like fantasies that the peasant children had made up to frighten one another. There has never before been any indication that the drug could possibly be real. Capture of Arimaspi mages is rare, but even the few we have secured in the past showed no signs of such a thing in their bodies."

"Of course not. To judge by the king and Lord Fai's conditions, I rather doubt any mage under its influence would have been capable of taking part in raids or battles," Suhail said dryly.

"The stories claim that the drug comes from the land of firedrakes, and that the Arimaspi use it to control their uncooperative mages. Perhaps the mere threat of its existence keeps their mages compliant and governable," Ateas added. "Any with less power than His Majesty would certainly be incapacitated by it."

"Which amounts to everyone but Lord Fai, and even he was overcome. Although that is likely because he is only a child with little training as yet," Suhail speculated, "and you reported that he did receive a significant but unknown extra dose when the king killed all the Arimaspi. King Ashura was probably operating under a controlled dose that the Arimaspi had deemed suitable to contain one of their own mages. At least, I assume that was the case when he created his detoxification spell. As for what came after..." The chief court wizard shrugged and let his statement trail off. He cast a serious look about the table. "This is most disquieting. We must be wary of this drug in the future."

Ateas said, "This drug is a problem, but is it really any worse than other narcotics? Sleeping draughts will also incapacitate a mage. Even simple drunkenness can do it. Surely the usual precautions can be taken."

"According to the early test results I have seen, this drug somehow interferes with a mage's connection to his power. It is a different problem than sleeping potions or drunkenness, Master Ateas. But I do see your point." Suhail surveyed the room again. "We should be careful of it, but avoid becoming hysterical or irrational about it. After all, as Master Ateas just reminded us, even too much of an ordinary sleeping draught can result in prolonged unconsciousness or death."

"For now, we can put about the story that it did not work on the king," a councilor suggested. "The evidence would certainly suggest that possibility to any who do not know better, and from what Lord Suhail has said, it is probably true to some extent. With luck, the Arimaspi will assume that our mages are different from their own, and that their drug is not so useful against us."

Another councilor said, "Is that wise? Perhaps we should keep secret that the Arimaspi were able to encroach this far into our territory at all. They may not realize that their latest venture was so successful."

Vainamoinen shook his head. "We must assume they know this incursion was at least a partial success. Until they captured the king, they almost certainly would have had their mages send progress reports back to Arimaspea. Only after that would they have kept silent, since they knew we would have begun searching for His Majesty as soon as we noticed he had gone missing."

"There are other reasons we should not hide this," Taishakuten said. "None in the Southlands will be pleased with this news. It impugns the honor of us all, and my people love their king. They look forward to his visits with great anticipation and pleasure." Of course, Taishakuten thought cynically, much of that pleasure was because the royal court and servants spent money so freely at the shops, eateries, alehouses, and even the more disreputable businesses. But Ashura was indeed popular. The people always cheered his processions openly and loudly, and always crowded forward in hopes of catching even a brief glimpse of him. "Also, there is immense hatred for the Arimaspi among all the classes here. Knowledge of this outrage will make them redouble their efforts to be alert to the Arimaspi, and give warning if there is any doubt or trouble. Even the secret criminal dens will be watching for Arimaspi. We should make sure that the existence of the new camouflage magic is widely known, so all in the Southlands can take precautions against it."

He paused. None of that applied to the drug. In his opinion, it created greater problems than just new forms of Arimaspi aggression. It could destabilize Seresu, if any who sought to overthrow or control the kingdom's rulers got their hands on it. And if it became generally known to be available from Arimaspea, it would surely become a black market trade item. The minor, less protected magicians could be threatened or manipulated with it, which could annihilate the economy and the trust between magical and non-magical folk. Unchecked, it could destroy their entire way of life. It would be best to keep knowledge of the drug a secret, at least until after the royal apothecaries and wizards had devised better and quicker defenses against it than slow-working detoxification spells.

"We should make the public aware of the incursion and the king's mistreatment," he said slowly, "but perhaps it would be best to keep the details vague and imprecise. We should keep any military advantages from being spoken of too freely in the alehouses and brothels." He outlined his concerns to the grim-faced councilors.

Most of the men who had accompanied Taishakuten to rescue the king had not known exactly what was wrong with Ashura, so there was no danger that one of them would become loose-lipped after imbibing too much ale or indulging in too much wenching. Ateas was completely trustworthy and loyal, and so wasn't a problem. However, the three woodsmen who also knew the truth were an inconvenience. A suitably skilled wizard could remove the dangerous details from their memories, or, if necessary, they could be quietly killed. Aside from the highest-ranking members of the royal court and Taishakuten's own people, no one else knew the specifics of the drug. The Arimaspi camouflage magic was already known among his men, but knowledge of that didn't pose the same dangers. As he had already stated, it was an advantage that the people were aware of it and watching out for it.

Taishakuten tuned out the resulting chatter his words had provoked. The issue wasn't something that would be decided in just one council meeting. There would be a great deal of discussion to inform policy, and perhaps by then the king would have recovered. Taishakuten's eyes ranged over the arguing noble councilors and court wizards. What did they really think of the internal problems the drug could create, the havoc it could wreak on the realm's stability? Were any of them inclined to use it for their own purposes?

It would be the act of a fool to attempt to take down the current power structure of Seresu. Magic supplied the kingdom with numerous sources of prosperity despite all the ice and cold, such as providing a guaranteed means of detecting rich veins of precious metals in the mines, and getting rid of stubborn crop pests during the fragile growing season. War magic gave the country its huge advantages over Arimaspi acts of aggression. Seresu could be conquered far more easily were someone to use the drug to control or destroy the royal family and the other powerful wizards. Everyone must realize that. Was anyone present so stupid as to believe otherwise?

He didn't want to elaborate further on the idea, not even in a private session of the royal council. He would speak with Vainamoinen and Suhail later, in better seclusion. Something about their eyes told him that this danger had not been lost on them. Probably every wizard in the room was nervous. They were the most personally threatened. But even the non-magical nobles were endangered, not to mention the multitudes of common folk whose lives would be disrupted or even ended.

Taishakuten frowned. He liked his way of life and did not want to see it destroyed. No one wanted to see Seresu turn into another Arimaspea, or see mage set against non-mage. It would be devastating, and who would reap the benefits? Arimaspea. Skudra and his vermin would take advantage of the chaos and sweep into Seresu like a vile plague of carrion eaters.

All this only reinforced his desire to obtain a seat on the Council of Nobles and gain more power over the governance of Seresu. Without doubt, a stronger, dedicated arm was required to guard the king and his family, to ensure the realm's safety and security.

In the meantime, it was clear from the many voices bickering that no one was yet willing to state aloud exactly what the Arimaspi incursion really meant.

Taishakuten got to his feet. "In your anger over the drug and the mistreatment of our king, you are all overlooking the most important point. This foray was an act of war," he announced. He paced around the table and stopped beside Vainamoinen's chair. "You must realize that the Arimaspi did not do this as part of some petty raid on a few farms, or even as an attempt to get at the Borean gold mine. Lord Vainamoinen, you yourself stated that it was an organized incursion to test their new camouflage magic. A secret encroachment this deep into our realm must be a prelude to invasion. We cannot allow this outrage to go unpunished."

"The perpetrators are all dead, Lord Taishakuten," a councilor pointed out.

"Does anyone believe King Skudra will not press harder, now that he has had a taste of success?" Taishakuten said in response. "We must make it clear that we will not tolerate Arimaspi aggression, and that we will secure our kingdom's safety at all costs. The Arimaspi need to be taught a sharp lesson for their transgression. Preferably a permanent one."

"Only the sovereign can formally declare war on another nation," Vainamoinen said calmly, enunciating his words with precision. He stared hard at Taishakuten, as though trying to enforce his statement through will alone.

"The sovereign is the reason we're all just sitting in this room clucking like hens," Taishakuten returned. "For his sake, we should destroy the Arimaspi vermin once and for all."

"I do not believe His Majesty would agree." Vainamoinen stroked his chin and his neatly trimmed, graying beard, then folded his hands. "I do not know why, but for now he wishes to abide by the treaty. He has said more than once this year that he doesn't want to escalate hostilities with Arimaspea."

"They are the ones who have escalated hostilities. They invaded our land, captured our king, beat him, and drugged him into a coma. No one can claim those actions weren't a blatant violation of that disgusting treaty! We are no longer bound by its terms, and Ashura is in no condition to forbid retaliation."

"I know you are charged with defending this territory, my lord, but do not do anything rash," Vainamoinen said severely. "You must not cross the border with your army. When King Ashura recovers—"

"If he recovers," Taishakuten snapped. His eyes ranged over the room's occupants, noting their reactions. He believed he had most of the wizards, even Suhail, and almost half of the councilors on his side. Everything about this disaster outraged them—the drug, the camouflage magic, the assault on the king and his son—and they were looking for an excuse to do the right thing. But still they hesitated, opting to follow their hidebound, antiquated protocols and traditions. He had to find some way to get them to openly support a formal declaration of war on Arimaspea.

"Sit down, my lord," Vainamoinen said coldly.

Taishakuten glared at him, but Vainamoinen was unmoved. Seething at being rebuked for saying aloud what everyone else was thinking, Taishakuten returned to his place at the table by Ateas.

"We must hope for the best," Vainamoinen allowed once Taishakuten was seated, "while planning for the worst. There are things that must be done before we can even consider taking action against Arimaspea. That is really what this session was called to discuss."

"Such as what?" Taishakuten asked, not hiding is irritation.

"Everyone hopes that King Ashura will recover," the head councilor stated. "However, this new drug, his own magic, and our healers' inability to use their skills until the king's spell fades...it all creates uncertainty. Additionally, His Majesty's heir, Lord Tancred, is a minor. We must plan for the possibility of a regency."

"It is still much too early for that," Lord Syed protested. "The attack was only yesterday afternoon."

"I agree," said Vainamoinen. "However, we cannot deny the possible destabilizing effects that recent events may have on the realm. We must move to prevent..." He visibly hesitated, then finally said, "...potential transitional difficulties. Delay will only make security measures more difficult to implement, should they become necessary."

A fancy way of saying he feared a possible insurrection or civil war if Ashura died, Taishakuten thought derisively. It was a valid concern. Tancred was only thirteen, and seating a mere boy on a throne, even one so solid and stable as Seresu's, always held an element of uncertainty. But Taishakuten would rather see Fai become king, if it came to accepting an underage child as titular monarch. He was certain that was what Ashura truly desired, even if the king had denied it to keep Fai safe. Taishakuten believed he could muster the support and military might necessary to put Fai on the throne and make sure the child stayed there. He would control the country himself as regent until Fai came of age.

And suddenly the meaning of Vainamoinen's flat statement that only the sovereign could declare war became clear. Assuming Ashura died or remained incapacitated, the regent and regency council would hold all the sovereign power of the kingdom. That included the power to formally declare war. Ashura was an extremely popular king. There would be no protests about war against Arimaspea, not even token ones, from any quarter of the country.

The clever, sneaky old bastard, Taishakuten thought admiringly. His resentment of the chief councilor fell away.

Vainamoinen was still talking, "...that event, we must implement precautions to ensure that all the royal heirs are kept safe and cannot be taken or used by disloyal factions. Therefore, Lord Tendulkar's family shall be removed to Luval Castle immediately."

Hardly a surprising move. Taishakuten would have given the exact same order. All the men and women in the room nodded in agreement.

But Vainamoinen wasn't done. "And because of the persistent rumors regarding Lord Fai's heritage, he must also be sent to Luval to minimize the potential for disruption."

Now there were a few quiet murmurs, but no one argued. All present knew of the rumors about Fai and Ashura. Taishakuten wondered how many believed as he did. Probably quite a few, he decided, viewing a number of hardening faces around the table. It would be instructive to discover which of them would not object to seeing Fai become king. But that exercise in intelligence-gathering was for another day.

Suhail spoke, "Lord Fai cannot be teleported yet, and in his weakened condition is unlikely to be able to endure such a long journey by horseback or wagon."

"We will wait until he recovers and the detoxification spell within him has completely dissipated," Vainamoinen said with a slight bob of his head to acknowledge the obstacle. "I am told it will soon be gone."

Now Taishakuten felt compelled to speak up again. "Lord Fai is perfectly safe in Vasara. Surely there can be no question of security. Not with the full assembly the Council of Nobles, the court wizards, and the majority of the royal court in residence. My army can protect him and the king, and a large part of the royal army is also on the way here and should arrive within the next few days."

"Lord Fai should not stay in the Southlands any longer than necessary," Vainamoinen said implacably. "For now, we have no option but for the boy to remain, but when he can travel he must be sent to Luval. Additionally, some of the court will return to Luval to watch over the children. The rest of us will remain here until the king's condition becomes plainer."

Until the situation was resolved, one way or another, was the unspoken statement. Taishakuten bridled at the implied distrust, then forced himself to relax. Really, Vainamoinen was completely justified in the care he was taking to keep things under control, and he hadn't made any specific accusations. These were just general precautions. Besides, Taishakuten did intend to find a way to displace Tancred and his siblings, and put Fai on the throne in the event of Ashura's death. But he rather hoped the head councilor was only being paranoid, and hadn't divined Taishakuten's own, ulterior plans.

Taishakuten smirked. "Lord Fai won't be happy about being forcibly separated from the king. Have you forgotten how things sometimes go insane when he gets upset?"

"We know even better than you, my lord," Suhail said with a slight grimace. He looked like he had swallowed something thoroughly unpleasant. "But in all these months, Lord Fai has learned a great deal of moderation. He only lost control that badly twice under extreme and highly unusual circumstances. I believe he will be fine. In any case, we have no other choice but to put him into safekeeping for Seresu's continued stability."

Another of the court wizards, the dignified Lady Nilima D Tyagi, asked, "Are there any formal plans prepared for a regency, or will we be required to draw them up ourselves?"

Vainamoinen looked pleased at the tactful diversion. "King Ashura revised and updated his official instructions for just such a contingency a few months ago. He reaffirmed Lord Tancred as his heir."

"Did he also name a regent?"

"Yes—"

"Not Lady Sybilla?" a councilor interrupted with a look of horror. An uncomfortable stir went around the table at the thought of Tancred's mother holding that much power. Taishakuten felt the same. Sybilla was an amusing courtier and an admirable mother, but ultimately she was an impractical choice for regent, as she displayed little interest in the details of governance. She seemed more interested in her clothes and jewels than in affairs of state. Neither was she much of a manager. Everybody knew that the business of running Tancred's estates fell to Ashura and a number of competent stewards and bailiffs.

"No. Lady Kendappa is named, as the only remaining adult blood member of the Royal House of Vanir." Vainamoinen smiled at the sighs of relief. "She will serve as regent until Lord Tancred comes of age. There are other details, but the gist is that she, the Council of Nobles, and the court wizards will make up the regency council, as well as continue in their current capacities. His Majesty formalized the decisions back when..." He locked eyes with Suhail. "You remember that day he, er, was practicing his combat magic by blowing up sandbags?"

Suhail snorted. Taishakuten eyed them both curiously. It sounded like there was an interesting story in there somewhere. However, neither chose to discuss the matter further.

Taishakuten asked with spurious innocence, "Considering that Lady Kendappa has been named regent, don't you think she should start attending these meetings?" He imagined she would throw an impressive fit when she heard of her exclusion from the present discussion, which had decided her own future. He wondered, though, if she already knew she was designated regent. Ashura had probably told her of his decision.

Vainamoinen looked offended. "There is no regency yet. We are only considering contingency plans," he said stiffly.

"Of course," Taishakuten replied with a straight face, while inwardly laughing. "It's good that King Ashura has already worked out all the details in advance for us." In his opinion, such thoughtful foresight just made a better king of the man. Taishakuten sincerely hoped that Ashura would soon recover.

Vainamoinen looked again to Lord Suhail, and said with a distinct air of discomfort, "Sometimes Ashura can be frighteningly prescient about kingdom matters."

"Yes," Suhail replied with a faint, knowing smile. "He can be, can't he?"


	62. Chapter 62

Ashura walked along the road he had chosen.

Self-loathing rose with every step. How right the dark sorcerer had been about him, Ashura reflected bitterly. He had, indeed, chosen the way of death and destruction over the salvation of his country.

During the crisis with the Arimaspi invaders, he'd had several opportunities to either let Fai kill him or to let Fai die. Either outcome would have saved Seresu. Instead he had acted instinctively to preserve both their lives. No other possibility had even occurred to him.

In so doing, he had chosen to one day become a monster, all for the sake of just one important life. His only hope now was that he could somehow change the ultimate culmination of the future he had chosen, so that somehow that single precious life would not cease along with everything else.

He had been a fool all along, to believe he could ever have made any other choice.

But now he would have to live the rest of his existence knowing how he had betrayed, how he would betray, everything else he held dear, everything and everyone else that he loved. He would have to live for years and years with the knowledge that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, that he must not love all those others enough...

And so he despised himself.

It didn't matter. Ashura knew he would have despised himself no matter which path he chose. He just wouldn't have had to live with his self-hatred for nearly as long, had he chosen the alternate path.

The road glowed beneath his feet. How contradictory, that the path to madness and murder should be so full of life and cheer and even hope. That the way to the end of all things should promise continuance. Ashura knew it could never be. He would destroy Seresu himself. And then the whole world would vanish as though it had never existed.

He kept walking forward.

He could see the river of blood in the distance. He could see the exact location where it first formed. Bright, vibrant crimson, it began as a trickle but rapidly grew into a deluge. It rushed forward, forward, forward into the future where it spilled out into the infinite void and dissolved into utter non-existence. It was destiny, the destiny he had chosen not only for himself, but for his whole world.

He kept walking forward.

Indistinct human forms appeared on the path before him. The shadow-wreathed outlines of three people stood between him and the river of blood. A woman and two children. Soft mist obscured their faces.

He stopped and waited.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the eternal gloom, illuminating the figures that blocked his way. And he thought he must already be mad. That was the path he walked, after all. But no, it was still only a dream, he knew it was only a dream...

Luonnotar stood before him with his twin sons.

Her exquisite features and golden hair glowed, haloed in a nimbus of radiant light. Her blue eyes were filled to overflowing with compassion. The boys with her were about seven years old, just the age they would have been had they lived, but their faces were hidden in darkness. He would never see them, never know what they would have looked like. Luonnotar held their hands, keeping them close.

He couldn't bear it. He turned his face away.

"Ashura."

He closed his eyes and trembled, trying to shut out the sound of that musical, beloved voice. It was only a dream. He told himself that over and over. This luminous vision of Luonnotar and his sons was only a phantasm conjured by his grieving mind, a hallucination born of the Arimaspi drug that still raged in his physical body.

"Ashura."

Cool fingers lightly stroked his cheek. He jerked his head around. Luonnotar was some distance from him, too far to have touched him. But now she stood with only one boy, a boy with bright blue eyes and blond hair. Luonnotar held his hand as though it were the most natural thing in the world, as though the child were her own.

Ashura blinked rapidly. "Fai?" he whispered, but even as he spoke he knew the boy was not his Fai.

No, the child he beheld was as dead as Luonnotar. Fai's twin brother, the true Fai, gazed steadily at him. Ashura stared back, paralyzed, unable to look away again. It wasn't possible, it wasn't...

"Ashura," Luonnotar said, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her. Not yet, not yet.

He kept his gaze locked on the boy. "Fai," he breathed, drawing the name out like a caress. "Fai, I'm so sorry I didn't save you. I'm sorry I was afraid to help you. I'm sorry..." His voice broke, and he barely held back a sob. It seemed perfectly reasonable that this vision of the true Fai should come to haunt him, to chastise him for his past failures and his future transgressions.

Yet the child didn't say any unkind words. He just gazed at Ashura, and something in his expression seemed both sad and hopeful.

"Fai, I'll save Yūi. I promise, I'll do everything I can, I'll find a way..." And then a sob did escape him. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt two tears slide down his cheeks.

"Ashura, it will be all right," his dead wife told him. Gentle hands wiped away his tears, and soft lips brushed against his and vanished.

He opened his eyes. Luonnotar still stood away from him, still too far distant to have touched him. He brought his fingers to his lips. They tingled from the kiss. But it couldn't have happened. It couldn't...

"Ashura, it will be all right," Luonnotar said. "All is as it should be." The true Fai glanced up at her before returning his gaze to Ashura.

He let his hand fall to his side. "Luonnotar..."

"Everything will be fine," she said. And she smiled at him.

He was afraid to move, afraid to break the spell. He could only stare at his wife and the child that should have been his. They shouldn't affect him so profoundly—that was what he told himself. They were nothing more than a fantasy, an illusion contrived by his guilty soul to offer consolation and false absolution for the sins he had willingly chosen to one day commit.

The sunlight dimmed as though by gathering clouds. Luonnotar and Fai shimmered, the golden radiance surrounding them paling to silver mist, and their images grew translucent.

They were leaving. Even though he knew they weren't real, he wanted to stop them. He wanted to beg them to stay, but they were dead, dead and gone, and could never return. He wanted to join them in oblivion, but he had a child yet living to nurture and protect. He had a destiny to fulfill, and he had to save Yūi. He had promised to save Yūi. He had made that promise more than once: to Fai, not just now, but months ago to Fai's body as it lay in the sacred pool of the castle shrine; and to himself, as well, to his own heart.

But one day he would be granted his wish, and he would join them—after a lifetime of seventeen years, and after he found a way to keep his promise.

A cold wind gusted, carrying sharp pellets of sleet that cut through him. Luonnotar and Fai wavered. The wind blew harder, filled with snow and ice. It blew through Luonnotar and Fai, making their images ripple like reflections upon disturbed water. They grew indistinct, fading, fading, fading...and then they were gone.

He looked forward, toward the river of blood.

The wind howled.


	63. Chapter 63

Fai breathed deeply and hummed a little as he drifted toward wakefulness. The king's magic inside him faded and shrank more and more. Fai clung to it, but it was becoming as insubstantial as a light morning fog. His body began regaining sensation, and his mind began regaining thought and memory.

He was warm and comfortable, lying curled in a soft bed. He and the king must have reached the hunting lodge. But that didn't seem right. He remembered women's voices, one familiar. He finally identified it as Lady Kendappa's. She hadn't come along on the trip. What was she doing at the lodge?

He thought hard, and remembered hearing Lady Kendappa say that the king had saved him. That seemed a silly thing for her to say. Of course the king had saved him. The king had taken him from Valeria, but that had been months and months ago.

Explosions, running and terror, and a storm of destructive magic flashed through his mindscape. He shifted restlessly, disturbed by the disjointed imagery. Bad dream, he thought. It was just another bad dream...

And then a vision of King Ashura crashing down under his horse burst upon Fai like a thunderbolt. His eyes flew open and he sat up, gasping aloud.

Weak light radiated from a small magelight nearby. In that dim illumination, familiar, rich furnishings greeted his eyes. It was his room back at Castle Vasara. But that wasn't right, was it? He and the king had been going to the royal hunting lodge, and then...

Memories rushed through him, engulfing his mind and making him shake. It hadn't just been a bad dream. They really had been attacked during the ride. Fai hugged himself, remembering the flight through the Black Forest, the battle—the fear rising anew with the mental images.

In his mind's eye he saw the attack, how the king had set shields to protect the troop and then launched burning missiles of explosive ice at their assailants. How the defensive shields had been pummeled relentlessly, and then had failed to hold against a final, massive attack, and how King Ashura had fallen. Fai had been certain then that he had lost the most important living person in his whole entire universe, and he remembered screaming.

There wasn't much after that, just an indistinct impression of a whirlwind and lots of screams and a sudden jolt that shocked him back to awareness, and then the indescribable joy when he realized that the king was still alive...and something about control...then more fear, terrible fear, but he couldn't remember what he had been afraid of...

But they had been attacked. That must have been what had frightened him.

And now he was in his room at Vasara, in his nightclothes and in bed, so everything must be okay. Right? He was safe, so the king and the troop must have beaten the attackers. But anxiety plagued Fai. He felt his heart thud within his chest and hugged himself tighter. He cast a magelight of his own, a nice, bright one to dispel all the shadows, and looked around.

He saw that he wasn't alone. A middle-aged woman sat leaning back in a chair against the wall near his bed. Her eyes were closed, and her head was nodding.

"Hello?" he ventured timidly. "Are you awake?"

The woman jerked, startled. "Oh," she said groggily. She got up out of her chair and came to him, blinking sleep from her eyes. "Lord Fai, you're finally awake. Oh, thank goodness."

Fai looked up at her. She appeared pleasant and non-threatening. From her clothes, he decided she might be one of the minor gentry. She seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place her. He clutched at his covers. "Who...who are you?"

"I'm Mistress Terhi," she told him.

A moment's thought, and he remembered who she was. She was part of Lord Taishakuten's court. That made sense. A renewed sense of security filled him, and with it his flood of questions became safe to ask. "What happened? Why am I here? Where's the king?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm afraid you've been ill, so Lord Taishakuten had you brought back to Vasara. But you needn't worry, the healers all say you're fine. We've just been waiting for you to wake up." She started to turn away. "I'll call Lady Kendappa. She'll want to see you."

Fai felt fine, so he wasn't concerned about healers. The question she hadn't answered dominated his thoughts. "Wait, wait. What about the king? Where is he?"

But Mistress Terhi again didn't respond to that query. She instead went to the door and spoke quietly to someone outside the room. Then she went back to her chair against the wall.

Fai stared at her. Why wouldn't she answer him? He was sure the king was all right. He remembered the king being all right, but what if something else had happened? He remembered the king holding him and telling him everything was fine. But he also remembered that terrible fear...and now he recalled noises, too, like the sounds of the cooks chopping meat...and cries of pain...

Those memories made Fai feel vaguely nauseated, even though he couldn't place them in the proper context. "Please, I want to see King Ashura," he said, twisting his hands in his blankets.

Mistress Terhi only smiled reassuringly at him. "He's resting. Don't worry, my lord. I'm sure everything is all right."

Fai felt alarm rising. "Why is he resting? What happened?"

"Dawn isn't for another hour yet, my lord. Almost everybody except the night watch and the bakers is still sleeping."

"It's night? But it was only the afternoon..."

Mistress Terhi repeated, "Don't worry. Lady Kendappa will be here in a few minutes. She'll explain everything."

Fai wasn't willing to wait. He still felt the warm glow of the king's magic inside him, and when he focused, he could also feel the king's magic without, somewhere in the castle. But it felt strange, like it was both near and yet very far away. King Ashura's bedchamber should be next door. Why did he feel so far away?

Fai slid out of the bed and looked around for his robe and slippers. Mistress Terhi came rushing back.

"Oh, Lord Fai, you shouldn't get up."

"I want to go see the king," he replied stubbornly.

"My lord, you shouldn't disturb his rest," Mistress Terhi said, spreading her hands. "Please wait for Lady Kendappa."

"He always lets me see him," Fai insisted. "Something's wrong, isn't it? What's wrong?" His alarm was rapidly turning to panic. His voice rose. "Why won't you tell me about the king? Why won't you let me see him? Why won't you—?"

"Fai," a commanding female voice cut him off. Fai swiveled his head around, and saw Lady Kendappa standing in the open doorway. She looked tired and rumpled, with weary, reddened eyes, and her hair had been pulled into a simple ponytail. "That's enough, Fai," she said.

Fai turned in her direction. "But she won't tell me anything about the king. Why won't she tell me? Why—?"

"Fai, calm down." Lady Kendappa said to Mistress Terhi, "Send for Lord Fai's physicians. I want them to check him over." She looked at Fai with twitching lips. "However, I do suspect he is perfectly fine. He seems lively enough." Her eyes shifted back to Mistress Terhi. "Now go."

"My lady," the woman said with blatant relief at the dismissal. She curtseyed to both Fai and Lady Kendappa and made her escape.

Lady Kendappa closed the door. "Fai, you really should go back to bed."

"Are you going to lie to me, too?" Fai felt tears rise at the sense of betrayal and the worry he couldn't control.

"What do you mean, Fai?"

"Mistress Terhi said the king was only resting, but I can tell something's wrong. And I remember that someone attacked us. There were arrows and magic bolts and people got hurt! The king and his horse fell down!"

Lady Kendappa gazed at him and sighed. "Fai...Fai, settle down. It's over." She moved to the bed, sat down, and patted the spot next to her. Fai hesitated, but went to join her. He sat next to her, laced his fingers together with his hands in his lap, and looked at her expectantly.

"Fai, you're right, you were attacked," she said simply. "However, the king defeated the attackers. Lord Taishakuten brought you back to Vasara, and Lord Vainamoinen and Lord Suhail brought the best physicians and healing mages in the country to attend upon you. Everything will be fine."

It seemed a simple explanation, but Lady Kendappa's eyes were shadowed. Fai asked, "Who attacked us? Why? We weren't hurting anyone."

"The Arimaspi had encroached far into the Southlands undetected. That is who attacked you," she replied steadily. "As for why, well, we assume they were surprised by you, or perhaps they wanted to capture the king. They seem to have some new spells for concealment that allowed them to get so far into our realm."

"Oh," said Fai, eyes widening in realization. To his mind, that made perfect sense. He knew they hated Seresu, its magicians, and its king. "That was why the king got so worried when I saw that strange magic. He knew it was hiding his enemies."

"You saw this magic?"

"Yes," Fai said. "I saw the strange magic in the forest, but King Ashura had trouble finding it even after I told him about it. Then he got upset and...and Captain Faren got shot with an arrow!" He had seen plenty of dead bodies during his imprisonment in Valeria. He'd even seen people die right in front of him before, like his brother and the Valerian ruler. Those two deaths had horrified him, and Brother-Fai's had left him despairing. Captain Faren's death hadn't affected him personally like that, but it had been just as shocking and ugly. Was death always so brutal? He rubbed his arms to ward off a sudden chill and went on with his story. "King Ashura yelled for everyone to run. He had a big fight with the attackers. They had magicians, too."

"Ah, that clears up one mystery," Lady Kendappa said, nodding. "We were wondering about the details of how the attack happened." She offered Fai a small smile. "But now everything is all right."

He wasn't fooled. She was sad and trying to hide it. He was sure it had something to do with why King Ashura's magic felt so strange. "I saw King Ashura fall, but he was okay." He furrowed his brows and gnawed his lip. "I don't remember exactly what happened, though. A lot of it is really fuzzy."

"It was quite a traumatic experience for you. Perhaps you'll remember more when you are fully recovered and have had some more rest," she suggested gently. The look she gave him was very odd, though.

"I know King Ashura was okay after the fight, but now something's wrong with him," he persisted. "I can tell. I can feel him. I know something's wrong. And I also feel his magic inside me. Why is that?"

"You feel all of that?" Lady Kendappa raised her brows, then she shook her head ruefully and muttered, "What am I saying? Of course you can. You always feel Ashura's magic."

"Why is the king's magic in me?" Fai asked again. "I remember you said he saved me. I didn't understand before, but is that why?"

"You heard me? You were awake?"

Fai looked down. "Not really awake. I kind of thought it might all be a dream, but I heard you talking with another lady." He lifted his head and gazed beseechingly at Lady Kendappa. "What happened? Why did Mistress Terhi say I had been ill?"

"It happened after the attack. You were...sick," she said carefully. "The Arimaspi used a drug that made you very ill. There's a special kind of spell called a detoxification spell for taking care of things like that. Ashura put one inside you to rid your body of the drug. That's why you're well now."

"Oh, I saw him use one of those before, back during Sunbirth," Fai said in understanding. He touched his middle. "So that's what it feels like. It's almost gone, though."

"Yes." Kendappa covered her mouth with a hand and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. After a moment, she reopened her eyes, dropped her hand, and rubbed Fai's back. "It worked perfectly. I imagine it will be completely gone in a little while."

"It feels nice." Fai kind of wanted it to stay, but he could tell that Lady Kendappa was right and it wouldn't last for much longer. Only a wisp of the spell remained.

"Is that why King Ashura's magic feels strange?" he asked next. "Is it because he got tired from fighting the Arimaspi and making the spell for me?" He wanted the answer to be yes, but couldn't make himself believe his own hopes.

"It's complicated, Fai." Lady Kendappa sighed again.

Fai's fears reignited. He did not understand what could possibly be complicated, and if Lady Kendappa wouldn't explain, it must not be good. "Was he drugged, too? Is that why his magic feels strange? But why isn't he well yet? I'm well," Fai said worriedly. "Didn't he use the spell on himself, too?"

She patted his shoulder. "Yes, Fai, that's true. He also used the spell. It's just taking a little longer for him," she said, again with a false smile. "We just have to be patient."

Fai clenching his hands together hard. "I want to see him." Maybe Lady Kendappa was telling the truth. Maybe it was just taking longer for the spell to help the king. But Fai had to see for himself. He had to.

"Fai..." Lady Kendappa began. A knock on the door interrupted her. "Yes?" she called.

A maidservant opened the door and dipped a curtsey. "The healers are here, my lady," she said diffidently. A group physicians and healing mages filed into the room.

Fai said mulishly, "I'm fine. I don't want healers. I want to see King Ashura."

Looking resigned, Lady Kendappa beckoned to the healers with a short wave of her hand. "Fai," she said, "let the healers examine you, just to make sure. And if they agree that you are fine, I will take you to see the king."


	64. Chapter 64

It was a little past dawn by the time the physicians and healing mages finished examining Fai. During the time it took for them to complete checking him and questioning him about how he felt, the tiny bit remaining of the king's spell shrank even more, so much more that Fai could barely feel it any longer.

That pleased the healing mages a great deal, but Fai felt the loss keenly. He wanted to keep the spell with him forever, but it seemed determined to fade away to nothing. He knew it was supposed to work like that, and that it was a good thing that it faded, but he mourned its slow passing. And now the strange, near-and-far feelings that emanated from the king's magic somewhere in the castle had become more intense. The sensations did not reassure Fai. They made him worry.

However, the healers all agreed that he was completely recovered, and informed Lady Kendappa of that fact. "Lord Fai will be able to return to Luval very soon, my lady," one of the healing mages said. "Once the spell is done and gone, there will no longer be any obstacle to transporting him. It will not be much longer."

She nodded wordlessly.

Fai hopped down from the bed and protested, "Wait. I don't want to go to Luval. I want to see the king." He turned betrayed eyes onto Lady Kendappa. "You didn't say anything about going back to Luval."

"It's necessary, Fai—" she began.

"No! I don't want to go." He stamped his foot. It was a somewhat underwhelming gesture when done in soft slippers. Fai scowled.

"Virender and Mielu will be there, also, along with Tancred and Sybilla," Kendappa offered. "You want to see them again, don't you? I know Virender and Mielu are looking forward to seeing you."

Fai did want to see them again, but not if it meant he couldn't visit the king. He said stubbornly, "You promised that I could go see King Ashura."

"And so you shall," she returned evenly. "Be at ease, Fai. You won't be sent back to Luval for a while yet." She dismissed the healers and called some servants. "Get Lord Fai dressed," she ordered. "Fai, I will wait for you outside."

Fai didn't know why Lady Kendappa was waiting for him, when the king's chamber was next door. He didn't need her to help him find his way for such a short distance. Maybe the king was somewhere else. His magic continued to feel very odd, like it was in two places at once. Fai rushed his servants and dressed as fast as he could.

He met Lady Kendappa in the hall just outside his door. Six sentries patrolled the hallway, more than was normal. He looked to the next door over, which was guarded closely by two more sentries. That must mean the king was still in his usual chambers.

Kendappa said, "Come, Fai," and gently herded him forward. The guards came to attention, and one opened the door for her without speaking a word.

Inside, the main room was brightly lit by magelights and crowded with healers and courtiers. They all stopped and stared. One man came forward and bowed. "My lady, Lord Fai. I'm so glad to see that you are feeling better, my lord."

"Thank you," Fai replied politely.

"Has there been any change?" Kendappa asked.

"No, my lady."

She nodded as though she hadn't really expected a different answer.

"What does that mean?" Fai asked, looking from her to the man and back again. Lady Kendappa's face was set in depressed lines. Terrified, Fai looked forward, toward the open bedchamber door. "I want to see him," he said in a small voice.

"Clear the king's bedchamber," Lady Kendappa ordered. "Lord Fai and I will visit him alone."

They entered as the last of the healers left. King Ashura lay unmoving, looking curiously small and frail in the enormous bed. Fine bedclothes covered him to his chest, but his arms rested on their surface, lax at his sides. His unnatural pallor was emphasized by his black hair, the stark contrast making him appear bone white, and perspiration beaded his exposed skin. His chest rose and fell with deceptive ease, but his breathing was too slow, too shallow, and at irregular intervals he shivered ever so slightly.

"King Ashura," Fai whispered. He looked at Lady Kendappa. "Was I like that?"

"I'm afraid so, Fai," she told him. "But you recovered. So will the king."

She still sounded unsure. Fai went to the king's side. Nearer proximity didn't help resolve the paradox the king's magic presented to Fai. King Ashura still felt both close and very, very far away. It was so confusing. And he was dreaming, too. Fai could tell, and braced himself against the usual onslaught of pain and horror, but instead he perceived only sadness and a strange tension from King Ashura's dream.

The dream felt so odd; like the king's magic, it seemed to be both near and far at once. Fai thought the magic and the dream were connected somehow. Until now he had only felt King Ashura's terrible nightmares, before the king had set shields over his quarters to prevent it, and never a non-horrifying dream. Fai hadn't had enough training or experience back then to see past the violence to distinguish the subtleties, but now in the relative calm he noticed how the king's magic and his dream danced together, mingling and separating and rejoining, as though they both flowed from the same wellspring and followed the same general course. It really was very strange, but at least it wasn't a nightmare. He wondered if this dream would stay milder than usual, or if the tension meant that it would soon get worse.

On a small table next to the bed, he saw a basin of cool water and a cloth. He picked up the cloth and wrung it out, but hesitated to put it to its intended purpose.

"It's all right, Fai," Lady Kendappa said. She had come up behind him. "Go ahead. You should talk to him, too. The healers say that sometimes sleeping people can hear even in their dreams. I'm sure Ashura would love to hear your voice. It would inform him that his spell worked and you are well."

Fai nodded, but he didn't know what to say. He lifted the cloth and timidly dabbed at the sweat on King Ashura's temple. As he did so, he felt the spell in his own body fade a little more. There was only the tiniest glimmer left. When it was gone, he knew he would be sent away, back to Luval. The healer had said so, and Lady Kendappa had agreed. He didn't want to go. So he focused inward and wrapped his own magic around the spell, attempting to encase and trap the king's magic before it could leave him forever, but despite his desperate efforts it slipped free. He couldn't keep it safe, no matter how hard he tried.

Then he wondered about the spell within the king, and why it wasn't working very well. Shouldn't the king have recovered by now? The spell inside Fai had worked perfectly.

He shifted his focus outward and then into King Ashura. There, in the center of the king's being, Fai found the detoxification spell, glowing like a tiny jewel. It was too small, though. No wonder the king was still asleep. Such a small thing couldn't work very fast on someone so sick.

Fai inspected the spell, gingerly examining its patterns. He was careful not to touch it with even a hint of his own power. He knew he still had problems with control, and he didn't want to do anything to hurt the king, but he could look. He'd gotten pretty good at just looking at things, and sensing how magic was shaped. The spell in King Ashura felt just like the spell inside him.

He caught his breath at that insight, and realized that it didn't merely feel similar to the spell inside him. It felt identical, like it was the exact same spell. That couldn't be right, though. All spells felt to him as though they were slightly different, even those that were created the exact same way by the same mage. Yet he was certain these two spells were perfectly identical, like they had been created as a single enchantment. But that made no sense. How could the same spell be in two people at once?

He looked deeper, and saw that the king's spell was incomplete, with sharp, poorly sealed edges. It was as though it had been hastily cleaved apart with a knife.

Fai dropped the cloth and touched his middle.

"Fai?" Lady Kendappa said, sounding concerned. "What is wrong, Fai?"

He didn't respond to her. He concentrated all his attention on the two spells. Now that he knew what to look for, he could tell that the tiny remnants of the spell within him had sheared edges matching those of the spell inside the king. But the spell in Fai was more complete, the edges healed over, the spell-pattern stronger and more stable, even now, even though it had done its work and mostly faded away.

"Oh, no," he breathed. He wrapped his arms around himself and staggered a few steps back until he bumped into Lady Kendappa. "Oh, this is my fault, isn't it?" He turned to stare at up at her. "It's all my fault the king is sick!"

She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Fai, calm down. This is not your fault."

"It is! It is!" he wailed. "The king cut his own spell in two and gave the better part to me! I can tell. I can see it."

She rubbed her face and took a deep breath. "Oh, Fai," she sighed. "How do you always know these things? Even the healers weren't so certain when they first detected it."

"That's what happened, isn't it? He did that, didn't he? That's why he's still sick! That's what you meant when you said he'd saved me."

Lady Kendappa knelt down before him and gripped his arms. "Fai, calm down."

Fai blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears. "It's because of me," he sniffled.

"Fai, this tantrum isn't helping the king. Do you want him to hear you acting like this?"

Fai dragged his sleeve across his face to wipe his runny nose and eyes. "But he did it because of me."

"Ashura makes his own choices," Lady Kendappa told him with a crooked smile. "No one makes them for him, and when he decides upon a course of action he is neither to hold nor to bind. This is not your fault, not at all. He did this for you, true, but he did it of his own free will. From what Lord Taishakuten said, you were the only thing that kept him with us at all. Believe me, we're all glad of that."

"B-but...but the part of the spell that he kept is so small and weak... Didn't he care that it wasn't strong enough to save him?" Fai wanted to bawl. The only thing that stopped him was the thought that, even unconscious, King Ashura would hear him and know of his weakness.

"Fai, he obviously intended to recover and rejoin us, else he would have given you the entire spell." She looked over at the motionless figure resting on the bed. "I promise you, he planned to heal."

"But if the spell is so weak, will it still work? It's not whole, it's not really all there..."

"Neither was the piece he put into you. His is smaller, and it will take some extra time, but clearly he believed it would work." Lady Kendappa stood up and held out her hand. "Now, Fai, we need to give him support while the spell cleans out his system. Come, child, dry your tears. We'll sit by him and talk to him, and encourage him to get better, hmmm?"

Fai took her hand and walked back to the bed with her. She seemed so certain, so positive everything would work out, but he knew she was really good at hiding her feelings. Just like the king.

Fai wasn't so sure at all that everything would be all right, but he could pretend, too.


	65. Chapter 65

Snow flurries swirled around him, obscuring his sight. Ashura started walking, leaning into the biting wind. Ice grew underfoot, spreading with each step he took. The whole world froze as he passed through it, and he could see nothing but white.

Behind him, he heard a sharp scream of pain.

He ignored it.

Wind gusted; a burst of ice crystals drove against his flesh like tiny needles. His hair whipped about his face. More screams sounded. He kept pushing forward, toward the future. He had made his choices; he had no choices.

There was only one way to save Fai.

A surge of power thrummed through his veins. He welcomed it, even knowing what it meant, even knowing what was coming next. He had chosen it. His blood burned, and he relinquished his identity, his very soul, without a fight, letting the Divine Madness sweep him away in a rush of ecstasy.

Raw power burned and purified him, and against that onslaught his core self dissolved into ash and dust. He did not mourn as the last, fragile vestiges of his humanity unraveled and shriveled away. Instead he took solace in the knowledge that he had a purpose, a goal he could strive to achieve through the insanity and murders that would destroy both him and his kingdom.

The power grew, glowing hotter than the sun, consuming him and purging his essence of all but blessed delirium and searing euphoria. It felt so good. Magic always felt good. The more, the better. It had always been like that for him. Always.

He had always pushed the boundaries of his power. All his life, he had striven beyond his limits, questing for new magic, more magic. And now, suddenly, there were no boundaries.

He spread his arms wide and let the fiery sensations deluge him and annihilate all his restraints. He felt stronger, more powerful than he'd ever felt in his life. The overwhelming fervor of life force flooded him, and he surrendered himself to it, allowing it to fill all his empty spaces, to make him whole and complete as he had never been before.

Simple houses and shops appeared around him. People ran in all directions, screaming, bleeding, crying. Some begged for mercy, others simply fled in hysteria. A map of the area lit up in his mind's eye, the position of each victim marked by a heady, incandescent core of life essence: each man, each woman, each child—even the new life growing within every expectant mother's womb. He lifted a barrier around the village so no one could escape, and laughed at the panic he created.

A woman clutching an infant to her chest slid in the icy, pinkish muck and fell before him. She pushed to her knees and extended an arm, pleading, tears leaving wet tracks on her cheeks. The baby wailed, its cries mingling with the woman's frantic entreaties and the shouts of terror filling the air.

He smiled down at her gently, lifting her chin with a bloodstained hand. She gulped and shook, her eyes wide and starting. Ashura smiled again, and tore out her throat. Before her body finished its graceless descent into the gory snow, her baby was also dead.

He whirled, catching a man in the belly, ripping through clothes and skin and muscle to the slippery entrails within.

Power surged, incomprehensible potency searing his veins. His heart pounded, pounded, pounded, a relentless, ever increasing cadence that drove the blood in his arteries and in the streets to rise and swell, forward and forever. His heart pounded until he thought it would burst with joy, and with it his blood sang.

He slashed with claws of dark sorcery, reveling in the rending of flesh, in the screams of pain and terror. Hot liquid spattered him, bathing him in its glorious essence. Power and strength surged through him, ecstatic, addicting. With each tearing strike, his magic grew, every cell in his body tingling with burning vitality. He had never felt so alive, so free. He could do anything. Anything.

He wanted more. He needed more. More. Moremoremoremoremoremoremore—

He felt cold.

Cold and numb, and so very tired that he couldn't even lift his eyelids. A frigid wind swept over him, and tiny ice crystals stung his exposed face and hands. Was he outdoors? He should go inside. Only a fool would stand witlessly in the elements when one of Seresu's ice storms threatened.

A peculiar lassitude held him motionless, captive to the shroud of numbness over his thoughts. What was wrong with him? He fought to move, to reason, and yet he feared it, too.

He inhaled the freezing air. Instead of the clean scent of snow, a metallic tang assaulted his nostrils. He opened his eyes—

—And barely held back a scream of horror.

He stood in the center of some nameless village. Bodies lay strewn around him, ripped to pieces. Crimson stained the snow, defiling its white purity, the warm blood melting ice and mingling with the liquid flows to create vile, pink pools.

He turned in a circle, scanning with his eyes, reaching out with mystical senses. Death hung over everything. In the entire village, not one person still breathed.

His eyes turned downward, to the corpses at his feet. His gaze fell on his hands, and his heartbeat faltered.

His hands were covered with blood.

Shredded skin and wet strings of tissue clung to his nails. His robes and greatcoat were splattered with gore and gelatinous gobbets of flesh.

No, his mind denied. It can't be. It can't.

Wildly, he checked the nearest body, a shopkeeper's apprentice by the looks of him. He held his right hand over a collection of gashes on the young man's back.

They matched. They matched perfectly.

Another body, he needed to check another body. An elderly woman, her belly ripped open and a basket of onions spilled nearby. It was the same.

No matter which corpse he checked, it was always the same.

Shock took his senses.

He fell to his knees, holding his blood-covered hands out before him, unmindful of the snow melting beneath him and soaking into his clothes, uncaring of the impending storm, the howling wind, the sleet and ice.

He had done this.

He had murdered this village.

Ashura buried his face in his hands. Realization tore at him, even as he shook worse than the dry, windblown leaves of autumn. He shouldn't be shocked or horrified. He had chosen this. He had welcomed it.

It had thrilled him, intoxicated him. He had given himself over to madness and violent death, and enjoyed every moment of it.

How could he have enjoyed it?

Around him, the blood ran in thin rivulets, the heat melting pathways through the snow. The trickles flowed together, combining into larger streams, which joined again, and again, and again, until a wide river of steaming crimson flooded the street.

Blood sluiced through the village, cutting a deep channel in snow and earth. Buildings collapsed under its onslaught, the debris and the corpses swept away in heated red currents. The only land remaining was the miniscule scrap of dirt where Ashura knelt.

The river of blood washed against the shore, lapping up against his knees, wetting his robes and greatcoat with gore. With each swell more of his islet dissolved. Ashura scrambled to his feet, but there was nowhere to go. His tiny refuge was dissolving out from under him, little by little, until there was only a bare hump of earth beneath his soles. Then even that crumbled away, and with a frantic cry he tumbled into the rushing blood.

The hot, vital flow surged, tossing him helplessly in time with a relentless cadence of drumbeats that pounded, pounded, pounded against his body and in his ears like the pulse of a giant heart.

He was drowning in blood.

At once, he came back to himself. This was a dream—a dream that caught him and engulfed him. This was the choice he had willingly made. The choice he would make; the choice he always made. The giant waves swamped him, filled his mouth and nose with blood, with heat, with stolen life. He choked, thrashing, fighting to keep his head above the violent swells. He went under, and flailed wildly, pushing to the surface to gulp in a gasping breath. He knew where the river led. He didn't want to see that future again, to live it again, to watch again as Fai's second curse swallowed the world.

That was the one thing, the only thing, he still hoped to change. That was why he welcomed the coming madness, why he would steal all the power from Seresu. That was the way to save Fai. That was the way to strip both his curses...before it was too late...

He struggled against the current, trying to turn it ever so slightly, to shift those last few moments of Fai's time in Seresu. Just a miniscule change, that was all that was needed to alter the climactic events of the world's end so they led to anywhere but to his child's doom.

The steaming blood swamped him as though to subdue him and force him to accept the inevitable. He felt himself sucked down and pulled forward. He fought with all his might and thrust himself back toward the surface. Coughing and sputtering, he broke through to air again, but the river's direction remained unchanged and drove forward with an incomprehensible need and the unstoppable force of an entire world's past and present and future all directing and strengthening it.

He couldn't turn the river, he couldn't, he couldn't, not alone, not now, not this far along the course of events. He had traveled too far, and bewildering, heretofore unknown instincts shrieked at him to quit fighting, to just follow the current to its final destination.

Soul-lost and despairing, he reached one desperate, bloodstained hand upward, screaming, begging for someone, anyone, anyone at all, to help him, to save him from the folly of his own choices, his own hubris—and in that moment he didn't care who or what heard.

The light dimmed as a writhing black cloud formed and filled the sky. Its mass undulated grotesquely, drawing closer, coming down to loom over him, following easily as the rushing crimson flow carried him farther, farther, into more madness and a destiny he feared and despised and had fought against and yet had accepted and willingly embraced more than once.

The cloud broke up into flurries of black butterflies. There were so many—so many they blotted out all else. They darkened the sky, a seething mass, beating their wings so hard the air gusted with wind. And in the center of that swarm a human form coalesced. Ashura got a glimpse of a slender arm, of sweeping black hair and eyes like the abyss. A graceful, feminine hand extended with the implicit promise of help—for a price.

"No!" he gasped, yanking his own hand back and choking on a mouthful of gore. He spat it out and stopped fighting the current of fate, letting it carry him forward. Not her, not the Witch of Dimensions! He would not be beholden to her for anything more. He would owe her no more payments, not ever. He would be manipulated no more, not by her nor by that dark sorcerer. He'd drown in blood first, and hold tight to what few scraps of free will he still possessed.

The river of blood surged into the future, sweeping him along with it. It shot beyond Seresu's murder, beyond Ashura's own death, beyond the activation of Fai's second curse. The river of blood rushed past the end of the world and plunged out into the endless void in a great downrush, breaking up into a glorious multitude of glistening, crimson droplets. Each sparkled vibrantly, brilliant and exuberant, before dissolving into non-existence as the blood plunged over the edge of oblivion.

Like life itself, Ashura thought abstractedly, feeling a curious, resigned calm settle over him as he rushed toward the edge. All that lived flared brightly for a brief moment in infinite time before being snuffed out and vanishing forever into the mystery of death.

And then the current carried him out over the abyss, and his consciousness shattered into tiny pieces and mingled with the glittering, cascading shower of blood.


	66. Chapter 66

Taishakuten stormed through the hallways, barely giving people time to scurry out of his way. He couldn't believe the things he had been hearing. Court gossip was always a trial, but matters were getting out of hand.

The rumors about Fai being Ashura's illegitimate son were out in force. Normally, those stories wouldn't have created any additional problems, since practically the entire country already believed them, anyway. What made them dangerous was that they were being tied to Ashura's current condition.

The situation had deteriorated since the previous day's council meeting. Because of the mystical connection between the King and the Land, only the blood of Vanir could sit on the throne, but it didn't matter if that blood sprang from the wrong side of the sheets or the right. It was now clear that others truly did believe as Taishakuten did, that Ashura would one day find a way to legitimize Fai and make him the heir to the kingdom. The informal political alignments between Tancred and Fai were already forming with breathtaking swiftness, far, far faster than Taishakuten could have imagined. So far everyone was only speaking in whispers, but Taishakuten's spy network was unmatched. He knew everything that went on in his own domain, and because the bulk of the royal court was in residence at Vasara, he also knew what the country's highest magnates were doing and saying in the shadows.

In a way, the charged political atmosphere gave him an advantage. He was learning who he could approach for political and military support when the time came to make Fai king. But not now! Taishakuten could barely comprehend the whirlwind of events, and all he could think was that it was too soon. Years too soon.

Ashura's official declarations of Tancred as royal heir were well known, and so far the nobility was publicly honoring them. Most of the nobles were only speculating as yet, although some were quietly preparing for the worst. To his dismay, Taishakuten found he couldn't predict which way the crisis would turn should Ashura die.

He had hoped to one day use his army and his vast resources to conquer Arimaspea for King Ashura. But now he was forced to consider the idea that soon he might have to conquer Seresu, instead—also for King Ashura, or rather, for Ashura's son.

The complimentary roles of kingmaker and regent, he thought, would suit him well. In his boundless self confidence, he knew he could rise to the occasion and make it all happen. But so soon? No, he'd rather that Ashura remained king. And really, he doubted that Ashura would have wanted to see his country laid waste by war over a disputed throne.

The wisdom in sending the royal children—potential heirs, all—to Luval had become crystal clear. Lord Vainamoinen, Taishakuten decided, was every bit as prescient about kingdom politics as King Ashura.

Of course, Vainamoinen had lived long enough to witness two royal successions. The chief councilor had already been the leader of the Council of Nobles when Ashura had ascended the throne, having been elevated to that august position only two years prior by Ashura's father. With his extensive experience, Vainamoinen would have known well the turmoil and confusion that even a smooth, uncontested transition of royal power could engender.

Vainamoinen's eyes had grown more and more haunted as Ashura's unconsciousness dragged on. However, he and the other councilors continued to advise patience and caution. The king, they said, was not getting worse. There were signs of improvement, they insisted, and the spell within him appeared to be functioning correctly, albeit slowly. It was only a matter of waiting.

That, Taishakuten thought, was certainly true, but even if Ashura didn't die from that accursed drug, the lack of food and water would gradually weaken him. And although the noble councilors advocated patience, they were quietly making ready for the unthinkable.

The wizards were preparing themselves, as well. Suhail, Taishakuten had noted with suspicion, regularly closeted himself with the court wizards in utter secrecy. Taishakuten didn't even want to think about what those powerful magicians might be planning should things go from bad to worse.

Ashura's continuing unconsciousness was very strange. The healers all insisted that the partial detoxification spell was working, that it was reducing the drug in Ashura's system, that it was gradually shrinking just as Lord Fai's had done. They asserted over and over that the king should most definitely not still be asleep, that he should have at least roused to partial consciousness by now. And yet, Ashura still slept. The healers were confounded and at a loss to explain it, other than to theorize that the king's own magic had somehow intervened and kept him from waking.

The healers claimed it was an accidental side effect, an unexpected and adverse interaction of magics and physical manifestations resulting from the king's unconventional division of his detoxification spell. But they looked uncomfortable when they discussed their theory with the council, and there was something about the way they phrased certain details that didn't quite ring true. Taishakuten sensed that they didn't fully accept their own theories, but they provided no alternative explanations.

In fact, it didn't sound like they were describing mere mischance at all. Not if they really believed that Ashura should have wakened by now. And it was clear that they did believe that much of their own story, at least.

Privately, Taishakuten wondered instead if, on some deep level, Ashura wanted to stay asleep. Some of the things the healers had said danced around that idea. But that was insane, and no one had yet had the nerve to state such in plain words. That was almost certainly what the healers did not want to mention, and in light of the inflammatory political situation, their reticence was probably wise. They had good reason to fear speaking directly of that theory, for as the crisis dragged on, darker rumors had begun to emerge.

Taishakuten again heard reports describing whispers of Ashura's supposed breakdown during deep winter, and of several suicide attempts. This time, the stories claimed, the king had merely taken a more roundabout approach, disguising his death wish as a desire to save his illegitimate but beloved son.

Those rumors should have been easy to crush. King Ashura had not sacrificed his life for Fai's sake; he had attempted to save them both by splitting that detoxification spell in two. Granted, he had given Fai the lion's share of the spell, but everyone should have understood that that was the instinctive reaction of any decent parent. That the king had kept any of the spell at all for himself indicated that he had hoped to survive.

Those facts were all known and quite reasonable, yet they were dismissed as irrelevant by the scurrilous gossip. Taishakuten had already set his spies to locating and warning the mouths behind those disgusting falsehoods. He decided that he would take appropriate action to silence the stories, should they continue. He didn't care who he offended, and felt not the slightest trace of guilt or conscience over the idea of murdering certain of his noble guests. The great lords should take better care to keep themselves, their dependents, and their retainers in line, if they wanted everyone to continue breathing.

What a mess.

And the royal visit had started out so well, too. How had things come to this?

Taishakuten found that in his frustrated and angered musings he had arrived at Ashura's quarters. He stared icily at the sentries in the hall and the guards by the door, and growled, "Get out of my way."

Not that they were in his way. They wouldn't have tried to stop him in any case. A variety of servants, healers, and high-ranking nobles were in and out of the king's chambers at all hours of the day and night. No one bothered to point that out; no one was prepared to say anything at all to him when he was in such a black temper. The guards' eyes widened in alarm, and they moved aside with alacrity. One extended his hand to open the door for his lord.

Taishakuten didn't wait for the man to complete the gesture. He shoved the guard aside, flung open the door, and stomped in.

Inside was a veritable mob. Courtiers and servants and healers milled about in the antechamber, the living quarters, and crowded the open doorway of the bedchamber. Naturally, a king's healing and recovery required a plenitude of attendants, just as his death required a bevy of witnesses.

Impossibly, Taishakuten's mood darkened further. Elbowing people aside, he marched straight to the open bedchamber door and snarled, "Everyone, get out."

They all gaped at him.

"I said get out!"

His enraged shout got everyone's attention. Like the guards, no one present was willing to argue with him, and they all hurried out of the bedchamber. Vaguely, he was aware of muttered complaints, and knew some had gone to fetch personages with more authority, but he didn't care. He slammed the bedchamber door shut on the sea of disbelieving faces, and turned to glare at the room's only other occupant.

Ashura lay motionless in his bed. He no longer sweated or shivered. His breathing was deeper and at a normal rate. Even his color appeared healthy. Those things were all positive signs that his detoxification spell was working, yet he remained comatose. His eyes did not even twitch under the closed lids, he was so deeply unconscious.

"You'd better wake up soon," Taishakuten told the sleeping king. "If you don't, those fools you call councilors will do something stupid."

Naturally enough, Ashura didn't reply.

Taishakuten stepped to the bedside and glowered down at the king. "You cursed idiot," he hissed, venting his frustrations, "you must have known what would happen when you divided that spell and gave the larger share to Fai. Even drugged like that, you had to know. And now look what's happened." He knew it was an unreasonable accusation, but he didn't care. He huffed in exasperation. "I find it utterly incomprehensible that anyone in this entire kingdom still believes your ridiculous fiction that Fai isn't your son by blood. As though you'd take such a reckless gamble for a random, stray waif."

He slumped into the seat by the king's head, still warm from its previous occupant. He regarded his ruler wearily. "I don't know. Maybe you would have risked it, even if Fai were just a lost foundling you picked up from some forgotten world. Ashura, do you have any idea what you've done? Seresu will be torn in two if you don't wake soon. The great magnates are already maneuvering and choosing sides in case you die, and this crisis isn't yet even three days old.

"The children are all to be sequestered in Luval. Your brother's family is already there, in fact. Has anyone told you about that? All your relatives will remain virtual prisoners until this catastrophe is resolved, even your Fai. You could end this stupidity if you'd just open your thrice-damned eyes, or at least show some clear, unmistakable signs that you will recover. The healers all say you should have wakened by now. Why do you insist on confounding them?" He leaned in close to Ashura's ear. "Do you hear me? I know you must. You always see and hear everything important to you. I suppose it's that impressive magic of yours." He chuckled darkly. "Either that, or your spies are even better than mine."

He straightened back up and regarded the king unhappily. "I will keep Fai here with you as long as I can, but that won't be for very much longer, not with the way matters are progressing. But know this, Majesty: I will remain your faithful servant, even in death. I will not fail to uphold your true wishes, though you have not spoken aloud of them. I will do everything in my power to make Fai king after you. I swear I will guard and support him with all the wealth and military might at my disposal. I will do whatever it takes to seat Fai on your throne and keep him there, no matter how much of Seresu's blood I must spill."

He snorted. "But really, Ashura, it would be much better if you would just hurry up and let everyone know you plan to stay alive for the foreseeable future."

His rant finished, he regarded the king silently for a few minutes. Almost unwillingly, he fingered a lock of Ashura's night black hair. "Stupid," Taishakuten muttered, irritated by his own foolishness. He withdrew his hand. Some things were impossible, even for him.

A commotion erupted on the other side of bedchamber door, loud enough for distinct words to be heard through the thick wood. A child shrilled, "Let me through! Let me through!"

That was Fai. Taishakuten stared hard at the door, hearing quieter, placating tones from the adults, but they didn't carry as well so he couldn't make out the words. Fai screeched his demand again, and Taishakuten winced. Probably he had better let Fai in. Ashura might believe Fai to be perfect, but Taishakuten recognized the stubborn, willful streak behind the polite, quiet façade the child usually presented. Fai would continue to make a fuss until he got his own way, and if that didn't work he'd just find a way to sneak in eventually. In that they were very much alike. Taishakuten also did whatever was required to get his own way, although he had left tantrums behind with childhood.

The king also always got his own way, and Taishakuten knew there were occasions when it wasn't as easy for him as simply giving an order. At times, Ashura could be obstinate and manipulative, and had probably also thrown well-timed, calculated tantrums in his youth. Despite the physical dissimilarity between the two, Taishakuten believed that the son took after the father in more ways than just magic.

And really, who better to talk the king into waking? Perhaps guilt at Fai's continued heartache would do what no healer could and nag Ashura to wake for his son's sake. The more time Fai spent with Ashura, the better.

Taishakuten pushed himself to his feet, crossed the room, and opened the door. "Lord Fai," he said, and paused.

The courtiers he had evicted from the bedchamber all regarded him with wariness and thinly veiled hostility. Several had put themselves between the door and Fai, which clearly had caused the child's distress. He supposed they had meant well and only done it for Fai's good. Taishakuten's own mood had been distempered when he had thrown them out, and they wouldn't have wanted to expose Fai to its ferocity.

His cold eyes swept over the silent crowd. "Move aside and let Lord Fai through," he told them quietly.

Fai was staring at him, but took advantage of the opportunity presented and slipped past his would-be protectors. Taishakuten closed the door after him.

"Thank you," Fai said politely. His bright blue eyes took in Taishakuten, traveled around the room, and then settled on the bed and its quiet occupant.

"So you're here to visit your fa—ah, the king?" Taishakuten almost bit his tongue in half covering his near slip, but for now the fiction had to be maintained for the child's sake. He wondered when Ashura had planned to tell Fai the truth.

Fai didn't take his eyes off the bed. "Something's wrong," he said. He wrung his hands together.

Now that Taishakuten looked closely, he could see the stress about Fai's eyes and the pinched corners of his mouth. "Something's wrong with the king?" he asked, just to clarify the matter. At Fai's nod, he felt a great fist clench in his gut. "How do you know? Have you told the healers?"

"It's not anything the healers can help," Fai said. "He's dreaming..."

Oh, was that all? Why was Fai so upset about that? And how did the child even know? Taishakuten had never heard that wizards could discern much about such things, but then, he wasn't a wizard and didn't know many of their secrets. Perhaps Fai's sensitivity was simply due to his relationship to the king. In any case, Taishakuten didn't view a dream as a cause for concern. "He's asleep. Dreams are only natural. It would be more worrying if he didn't dream."

"It's really bad." Blinking, Fai turned his little face up to Taishakuten, and for once didn't display any concern or discomfort at being in the warlord's presence. "I hate it when he has dreams this bad. Back at Luval, he shielded his rooms so I couldn't feel his dreams, but here..." He looked back to Ashura. "It's really, really bad. That's why I came. It feels like he's dying in his dreams. Like he's being shattered into a million tiny pieces."

That didn't sound good. "Likely it is just a reaction to the drug or the sundered detoxification spell," Taishakuten speculated, hoping Fai wouldn't decide to have hysterics. Taishakuten remembered the unbelievably wide, circular swathe of destruction in the Black Forest where Fai had last lost control. Without Ashura to calm him, Fai might well level the entire castle if he got too upset. "Didn't you have a few strange or bad dreams, as well? I thought I overheard Lady Kendappa say something about that while you were still asleep."

"Yes..." Fai said slowly. "I did have some strange dreams, but the king's are...different. He says they're just dreams, but they always feel so real and scary..."

Taishakuten was rather curious and risked asking, "Do you know what he's dreaming about that is so terrible?" Perhaps it had something to do with why Ashura remained so deeply unconscious. Perhaps he believed the nightmares reflected the real world, and opted to stay withdrawn. His last waking moments had not been terribly lucid, after all.

Fai shook his head. "I only feel the dreams. I never see them."

Probably just as well, Taishakuten thought.

"Oh," Fai said suddenly. He looked down at his stomach and placed a hand there. "Oh, it's gone. Oh, no."

Speaking of potential hysterics...what was Fai talking about and why did he look like he had just witnessed the end of the world? Children were incomprehensible. Especially mage-children.

"What's gone?" Taishakuten asked.

"The king's spell. It's gone," Fai said softly. He looked like he wanted to cry. "Oh, it's gone. It's gone."

Taishakuten could see no reason for such dismay. "Isn't that good?" he asked. "It means the spell has finished its work and the last of the Arimaspi drug has been removed from your system." By now, everyone knew that much about how a detoxification spell worked. The healers and court wizards had explained it again and again to all the non-mages. Surely Fai knew, as well.

"But-but now they'll send me back to Luval." Fai looked up with big, tragic eyes. "While I had the spell they had to let me stay, but now...they'll make me leave the king, and he's still sick, and he's having bad dreams, and it's all my fault."

Taishakuten became more convinced than ever about the incomprehensibility of mage-children. "What are you talking about?"

Fai didn't pay him any heed. The child instead was working himself up to throwing an impressive tantrum. "It's always my fault. Always! He wouldn't be sick if not for me! He should never have saved me—!" His voice rose shrilly and his hands made little fists.

"Stop that!" Taishakuten ordered sharply.

Fai drew in a gulp of air, but stopped his irrational litany.

Taishakuten heaved out a breath in the blessed silence, and attempted to console the child. "It's not your fault. How could it be? You were unconscious at the time. I know; I was there."

"But, but—you don't understand, it's always—"

"Be still," Taishakuten snapped, making a cutting motion with one hand to prevent the renewal of the preempted fit. "The king made his own choices. Believe me, no one could have stopped him." Ashura probably would have killed anyone who had tried, he thought, recalling the incident with vivid clarity and a touch of nausea.

"That's what Lady Kendappa said, too, but she was wrong—she doesn't know—if it weren't for me—" Fai's voice rose again.

"I said be quiet!" Taishakuten thundered. "You are being raised as a Vanir prince, so act like one and stop sniveling!" Wide, shocked blue eyes stared at him in disbelief. Probably no one ever scolded Fai, even when he was behaving like a brat. Taishakuten had heard accounts of Fai's background and his dreadful physical condition when Ashura had first brought him to Luval Castle. He understood why everyone treated the boy like fragile crystal, but he also had seen that Ashura indulged Fai shamelessly. Young princes were always cosseted and spoiled. Older ones, too, he thought with a flash of humor, unable to resist a quick glance at the bed.

He immediately dropped his voice, conscious of the fact that a sickroom was no place for volume. "Now," Taishakuten told the mute child, using a normal conversational tone, "first of all, this is not your fault. The Arimaspi are to blame. None of this would have happened if not for them. Secondly, yes, you will be sent to Luval as soon as the healers verify that your detoxification spell has vanished. Accept that fact with the dignity befitting your station."

Fai opened his mouth, and Taishakuten held up a hand to stop him from speaking. "I'm not finished. Lord Fai, I will do what I can to divert the healers so you can remain for a while longer, but you must behave yourself. No more tantrums. Agreed?"

Subdued, Fai nodded. "I'm sorry, I'm just worried."

"And the king's nightmares are making everything worse for you, am I right?" The Arimaspi attack and Ashura's condition were upsetting enough for Fai, Taishakuten reflected, but clearly those nightmares had pushed him beyond the edge. A little child couldn't be expected to cope with all of that. Taishakuten knew he shouldn't have yelled at Fai, but he couldn't afford to let the boy have hysterics and possibly lose control of his magic. This wasn't the Black Forest. Fai could do significant and even fatal damage in Vasara.

Fai nodded again, and looked down at the floor. "Why are you helping me?"

"What?" Taishakuten hadn't expected that question.

"You just said you're going to lie to the healers and keep them from examining me so I can stay. Why would you do that for me?"

Taishakuten grunted at that bit of discernment, and gave Fai a sharp look. Really, at times the child could be far too perceptive for his age. But Fai was mistaken about Taishakuten's motives, which had nothing to do with helping the boy. Taishakuten wanted Ashura to wake up, and Fai's distress was the tool he was employing to that end. He also was continuing his campaign to gain the trust of the king's son, for his own political benefit in the present and because he believed there was a decent chance that Fai would one day rule Seresu. It was always advantageous to be on a future king's good side. Besides, he wanted to keep Fai close at hand for as long as possible. Just in case he had to place Fai on the throne prematurely and take control of the kingdom...

Well, he'd deal with that situation later, assuming it even became necessary. "I think that His Majesty would prefer you to remain with him, and I believe you can help him."

"How?" Now Fai looked so hopeful, like Taishakuten possessed some secret wisdom that would cure all the problems.

Children were really, truly incomprehensible.

"Just stay here and talk to him. Tell him how much you miss him and ask him to wake up. Say anything at all that you think he should hear." And lay on the guilt as thickly as you can, Taishakuten added mentally. Cry and beg and get past that magical mess he's made that keeps him asleep. Make that fool of a king desperate to wake up for your sake.

What Taishakuten actually said next was, "I think he'll hear you, even though he's asleep. I'm sure he'll come back for you." He did before, when he was drug-crazed, Taishakuten thought, but knew better than to speak that aloud and upset the child even more.

Fai stared at him, then abruptly turned to look at the king. The boy winced like he was in physical pain.

"What's wrong now?" Taishakuten asked, feeling some alarm at Fai's reaction.

"The bad dream's getting worse." Fai clenched his hands together. "It feels so awful. I don't understand why the wizards don't know about it."

Taishakuten also looked at Ashura, but the king's expression was perfectly relaxed. There was no sign of any inner turmoil at all on those quiescent features.

"Well, you do, so you must make use of that knowledge. You must exert yourself to help the king wake up and escape his dreams," he said, attempting to sound encouraging rather than simply manipulative.

Fai blinked to hear that, then his expression firmed. "Yes, I will," he said bravely, though his voice wobbled a little.

Taishakuten was pleased to hear the slight tremor. Surely that note of misery would register somewhere in Ashura's sleeping mind and dismay him. Surely the king would want to wake and comfort his little boy. It should be possible, since the healers all claimed that wretched Arimaspi drug was no longer to blame for his continued unconsciousness.

"Good child," Taishakuten said, keeping his satisfaction from his voice. "I will keep everyone out of here for as long as I can."

He spared one last look at the unresponsive king. You'd better not die, or your whelp will probably go crazy and annihilate us all, he thought in aggravation.

How ironic, that he now faced the reverse of the situation he had barely resolved in the Black Forest, where Fai had been the unconscious one and Ashura the potential destroyer. But, equally ironic, the solution in both cases was the same. With luck, Ashura would hear Fai's pleas and drag himself out of that ruinous slumber.

With that hopeful idea in mind, Taishakuten exited the room to go placate a horde of agitated courtiers.


	67. Chapter 67

Distant thunder rumbled.

Consciousness coalesced, awareness returned in slow degrees.

A deep, rhythmic pulsation vibrated the hard ground, like a heartbeat. The spaces between each beat were filled with low thrumming.

Thunder rolled again, very far away.

Ashura curled up tightly, denying the return to wakefulness. He kept his eyes squeezed shut in defiance.

More thunder boomed, closer, and light flashed against his eyelids. He buried his face in the crook of his elbow to block out the light. Then the world went red and a thunderclap exploded practically on top of him. He jumped with the crash and his eyes flew open.

At first his only impressions were of black and purple, all illuminated by a low, reddish glow that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere. His eyes focused, adjusted to the strange, preternatural light, and he saw an infinite, flat expanse of fractured obsidian stretched out before him like a shattered ebony mirror. Quick flashes of white light shot through the loose stone and glimmered in the broken edges. Overhead, the sky was dead black, veiled in places with cloudy purple patches which emitted an odd, subtle phosphorescence. Jagged cracks in the overarching blackness glowed deep red.

There were no stars in that terrible firmament.

He sat up and looked around. He'd never before been anywhere like this in his dreams. "Where is this place?" he wondered aloud. His voice sounded tiny and insignificant in the infinity surrounding him.

No one answered. He was utterly alone.

He thought back, trying to recall how he had come to be in this strange, intimidating land. The last things he remembered were drowning in the river of blood, and falling over the edge of the abyss, and shattering, and...and seeing a vision of the Witch of Dimensions appear in a cloud of black butterflies. Had she really been there, in his dream?

No. No, she hadn't really been there. That vision had been just another fabrication of his guilty conscience, as illusory and self-serving as his vision of Luonnotar and the true Fai.

But...he had cried out to the universe for help. Had the Witch heard? Why would she even have been listening? Perhaps, he thought darkly, she had only been keeping an eye on an investment. Like the sadistic sorcerer, she had a purpose for Fai and for him that depended on him going mad at just the right time. A schedule for mass murder, and an agenda for his son's precious soul.

Real vision or false, it didn't matter. He had rejected what had been offered, whether by the Witch or by his own dreaming mind, and now he was completely on his own.

Painfully, he dragged himself to his feet. The barren landscape went on forever, flat and black and broken. The flashes of light could have been glittering stars, but that they were so brief and that they lit the shining ebon stone rather than the awful sky.

The ground's heartbeat throbbed, pulsing in the soles of his feet and driving up through the center of his body, and his own heart gradually synchronized with it, until the two beat as one. That should have been alarming, but here, in this surreal place, it somehow seemed natural.

Thunder roiled again, far away, and new cracks of red opened in the sky while others closed and disappeared. He felt energy prickle his skin, and a terrifying sense of the primordial that he couldn't explain.

He turned slowly, surveying the terrain. The scenery he beheld was the same, and the same, and the same, and then...when he faced to the rear, he finally observed a difference, a soft golden glow on the horizon. Now that he saw it, he felt its call, and he could not resist. He didn't want to resist. His heartbeat throbbed in unison with the land's, and his will became ensnared, and he walked toward the light without conscious thought.

The broken obsidian shards crunched beneath his feet. White lights in the rubble flashed and flickered and died. A flurry of bright, sparkling streaks shot through the black ground like meteors and were gone. Thunder rumbled. The purple clouds never shifted, and the cracks in the sky burned dully like half-cooled coals in an endless black void.

He kept walking until the stark landscape ended and he could go no further. He stopped, and stood looking out over the edge of a steep precipice.

Far below, so far his mind couldn't fathom it, and yet close, close enough to touch, an intricate, multidimensional latticework of bright stars and connecting filaments stretched out into infinity. There was no end to it, literally. His eyes traced some of the nearest strands, following their web-like patterns inward, and saw that they even ran under his precipice, beneath and throughout the black obsidian foundation, weaving the fabric of the underpinnings of reality, the glorious and complex tapestry of all life and existence.

Some of the strands farther out in the web glowed brightly, and something about them sang to his soul. He focused on the stars connected to them, and felt a frisson of shock.

They were dreams. His dreams of the future, and others...and the threads between them were the paths he followed through dreams, and also through the reality those dreams spun.

Spread out below him was the realm of dreams.

The entire realm of dreams.

His mind went numb.

The network of dreams went on and on, out into eternity, never ending and in infinite variety. He had never witnessed the dreamscape from such a perspective; he had only experienced it from within, traveling along the paths of life and destiny, unknowing of anything beyond, blind to the primordial sea of energy from which all dreams and all realities were formed. He had never been outside dreams or reality before.

With a gasp, he remembered falling into the abyss, and shattering...

This was the result, this displacement into the heart of existence, through the greatest void and the infinite fulfillment, and into the primal chaos from which all things birthed.

He started to shake. This was no place for mortals. This was no place even for gods.

Even gods...

He ran a trembling hand through his hair, then clenched a fistful of strands and tugged spasmodically.

He didn't belong here. Why was he here?

Why was he here?

Why was he here?

Why was he here?

All thoughts froze, and he could scarcely breathe. He didn't know how long he stood paralyzed, gaping out over the infinite, but gradually his trembling slowed and ceased, and his mind began to function. He took a deep breath, releasing his hair and pulling himself together.

There was probably no reason why he was here. It was all an accident. He had simply been swept here by blind providence. But now that he was here...

Reason took over from panic, and brought with it a sudden surge of hope. Yes, now that he was here, he could find all the paths through dreams, find a way to save Fai, maybe even find a way to save his world. Maybe he'd been wrong when he'd thought there was no way to save both. Maybe it could be done. He'd never had such access to dreams before. It was all laid out before him, the ultimate map of all possible destinies. He had only to look and see the future, all the futures, and the ways to reach them. He could trace out a safe route here; no one would stop him. Nothing blocked his sight. Everything was out there, displayed in brilliant, unveiled glory. He had only to look...

So he did.

Then he threw back his head and screamed.


	68. Chapter 68

Fai stood motionless and watched the door close behind Lord Taishakuten. The Lord of the Southlands had seemed genuinely concerned about the king, and his attention hadn't bothered Fai at all for a change.

It had been very nice of Lord Taishakuten to promise to help Fai stay in Vasara, and also to make sure that no one else would intrude for a while. Fai knew there was still a crowd on the other side of the door. He remembered their mutterings. They had been annoyed and afraid when Lord Taishakuten had thrown them out of the king's bedchamber. They feared for King Ashura, and wanted to hang over his every breath.

Well, so did Fai.

Fai walked to the bedside. King Ashura was so still, but his breathing was even. It gave no indication of the whirlwind of turmoil in the king's nightmares. Fai wondered why King Ashura wasn't screaming. The dreams felt like they were really, really horrific. In Vasara there were no shields to prevent Fai from sensing them. King Ashura hadn't set his protections here, but he hadn't had any bad dreams until now, either. He still felt both near and very, very far away, and now he also felt terrified and helpless and despairing. And because of the drug, he couldn't even wake up.

Fai wanted to cry. He reached out and stroked the king's long, black hair.

He'd never let himself do that before, not ever, despite the fact that the king often hugged and comforted him when he felt sad or afraid, or sometimes even for no reason at all. It felt nice to be able to freely offer some affection. He ran his hand down King Ashura's hair again.

"Please come back," he pleaded quietly. "You're here, but you're so far away. You've never been this far away before. Please don't stay so far away. Please don't leave me..."

He gave a soft sob and rubbed the tears from his eyes with a rough fist. Lady Kendappa and Lord Taishakuten both had told him to talk to the king. They thought that it would help, but Fai knew they were wrong. The king remained so still. Yet Fai also perceived the tiny jewel of magic pulsing inside the king's body, the spell that worked so hard to dispel that evil drug and make all well again. As long as the spell lived, King Ashura would also live.

"Why did you save me?" Fai whispered, unable to hold his guilt at bay. It pressed against him relentlessly, a lifetime of guilt for every awful thing that had happened to the people around him. "You shouldn't have saved me. You should have saved yourself. You're the king. You're the most important person in the country."

He rubbed his eyes again, and a terrible, choking sensation rose in his breast and throat. "I know everyone is blaming me for this, even though they deny it. They must be. They should be. They're right, too. Everywhere I go, I bring unhappiness. Everything I touch is always destroyed. Everyone around me always gets hurt or dies." Fai clutched the king's limp hand, and tears ran freely from his eyes. "I thought it was over; I thought when my brother died that the omen of misfortune was gone. But it'll never be over. Look what I've done. You should never have brought me to Seresu. You should have left me in that pit." He dropped his head down to the pillow next to the king's, and cried and cried.

After a while his wracking sobs subsided. He lifted his head. King Ashura was as motionless and silent as ever, and his nightmares still raged. Fai felt battered by them, and by his own emotions. He wasn't sure which was worse. With a shuddering breath, he climbed onto the bed and snuggled up against King Ashura.

"I'm sorry I did this," Fai whispered, resting his head on the king's shoulder. He put his arm over the king's chest and pressed in closer, taking comfort in the warmth that proved King Ashura was still alive, in the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

Fai closed his eyes. A few more tears leaked out. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."


	69. Chapter 69

Thunder rumbled, and the black land's heart beat steadily at a calm and stately pace. Sparks like stars lit the fractured obsidian ground, bright and heartrendingly brief. Another red crack opened in the sky, and three more closed.

Ashura wasn't sure how long he had screamed, or when he had fallen to his hands and knees.

He pushed himself upright, but stayed on his knees. His eyes were locked on the web of dreams laid out before him. The web that condemned him and his country.

Unable to stop himself, he traced the pathways again. There were many paths he could journey upon, an uncountable number of paths, but no matter which he followed there was only one possible outcome for Seresu. Despite the infinity of side roads offered by the dream space, the ultimate destination was always the same. There was no respite, no mercy. All roads for his kingdom converged on oblivion.

There were visions of madness, and of his own death, and of the elimination of the dark sorcerer's curses through Fai's death. None of them mattered. Seresu died in all of them. Only the means by which it perished differed.

There were many, many paths to Fai's death before that dread day when his second curse would run wild. It would be so easy to accomplish that Ashura's soul shivered with instinctive denial. Fai could die at Ashura's own hand, or by more cowardly assassination, or even by simple mischance or neglect. Those paths and dreams were all spindly and weak. They wouldn't manifest unless Ashura deliberately took them through life and forced them into being, but they existed nonetheless as possibilities.

The events to come on those unhappy trails varied, sometimes drastically, though without any effect on the ultimate outcome. Ashura lived on in some of those dreams, and inevitably went mad and murdered his country. Ashura died in others, and Seresu was spared for a time.

But no matter what actions Ashura took, the final culmination of all of those futures was always the same.

Though Fai might die and his curses be vanquished, everything died. Though Ashura ceased living before his madness could take root, everything died.

In all the possible futures, there was no place where his kingdom could exist. No matter what Ashura did, no matter how he struggled against fate, Seresu would vanish. All his striving and searching had been meaningless. Seresu would die. In all dreams, all of them, Seresu died.

Even if Fai killed Ashura for his madness and murders, and the dark sorcerer's curses were lifted, Fai would still die, and Seresu would die with him. Burdened by unmatched guilt and inconsolable grief, Fai would take his own life, and then the whole world would crumble, eaten away by nightmarish forces that would encroach from outside its boundaries.

Ashura had foreseen it. He had foreseen it all.

He wanted to weep. All his actions and plans, all his pain, all his visions—they all meant nothing, nothing...

Nothing at all...

He faced a horrific choice, the choice of how and why everything he loved would die. By murdering Fai and then killing himself, Ashura could obtain a little extra time for Seresu, but he could not prevent the ultimate annihilation of his kingdom, and his world. Somehow, some way, just because of Fai's death, the entire world would eventually fall to a devastating corrosion of anarchy and entropy.

That was the cancer he had sensed before, in his earlier vision of a lonely glacier and of the brutal, despicable act he had once mistakenly believed could save his realm. The foul necrosis he had foreseen in that dream would creep throughout the foundation of his world, spreading tentacles of rot and corruption into the land. The whole world would be pulled down, down into a morass of chaos and unreason until it fell apart and was gone as though it had never existed. Nothing could stop it.

And the destruction would not be limited to only his own world. That primal, insidious putrescence would infect and infiltrate everything.

Everything. Everywhere.

All paths where Fai died were catastrophic, not just for Ashura's world, but for all worlds, all realities, all dreams, everything everywhere, forever and ever and ever. In those dreams, the fabric of existence spiraled and snarled and collapsed into an endless breakdown of the laws that kept the universe's natural progression moving forward. Disorder and non-causality would come to rule all. And everything that lived, everything that existed, would be trapped in a repeating, deteriorating cycle of hell, dying and suffering for an unbearable eternity, until all finally dissolved into a nothingness from which there could be neither renewal nor rebirth.

All because of Fai's premature death.

This was why that ghastly vision of murdering Fai on a glacier had wept. This was why Ashura had felt as though reality itself had condemned him for taking that horrible action to save Seresu.

This was the true price of breaking faith with the Witch of Dimensions...

...The end of all existence.

It was too immense for his limited, human intellect to fully comprehend. He could only pick and choose which dreams to examine in that infinite web; he could never truly see and understand it all. Briefly, oh so briefly, he glimpsed but one path that exhibited hope for the universe, for all the universes. It led to Fai's continued life in Seresu, to Ashura's inevitable madness, and to his murder of his own people. And then he lost track of it amid the tangle of futures that created nothing but despair, corrosion, and dissolution. But what he had experienced of that dream had been enough.

He didn't understand why, but for all that existed to have even a slim chance to live, Fai must be spared, and Seresu must die in the manner he had foreseen, by his own hand. That elusive flash of vision had irrevocably seared that merciless fact into his consciousness.

There were but two bitter options for his kingdom: Seresu could die in the ultimate chaos along with all else that existed, or Seresu could die earlier so that all else that existed might continue living. But Seresu would die regardless.

That was Ashura's real choice. He'd been so wrong before, so terribly, terribly wrong. He wasn't required to make a decision between Fai and Seresu. No, instead he was forced to choose the fate of the entirety of the whole universe—all the worlds in existence, in all the dimensions of space and time, everything and everyone who lived, and even those souls yet unborn.

There was no real choice. There was only one choice.

He shuddered, wanting to deny it, desperate to abdicate such a monstrous responsibility. He was only mortal; he shouldn't be required to bear such a burden, to make such a horrific decision.

Was that why he was here, in this place where even gods should never venture? To see the truth, to stop fighting the currents of time and finally be forced to embrace his own destiny, the destiny he had foreseen all along? To accept his country's fate, its role in the cosmic scheme of things?

Seresu was the sacrifice. Seresu had always been the sacrifice, from before it had ever existed, even from before the beginning of time.

"It's not fair," Ashura whispered, staring at the web of dreams. His hands clenched into fists until his nails gouged bleeding wounds into his palms. He screamed out over the precipice, "It's not fair!"

Thunder roiled. The luminescent purple clouds remained fixed in place, unmoving, unchanging. New red cracks in the sky opened up, and others closed. Sparks of light twinkled in the broken obsidian land like brief stars, flashing and dying in mere instants but with new ones lighting constantly to replace them.

Ashura opened his hands and gazed at the bloody cuts his fingernails had made. They were shaped like crescents. Crescents, like the crescent moons that decorated the Witch of Dimensions' abode, like the crescent moon that had so beguiled Fai during a pleasant evening of stargazing.

The sound of a drop of water plinking into a pool of liquid came from somewhere nearby. Ashura looked up from his injured hands. A soft sob ghosted across the bleak, black terrain, along with half-heard words that Ashura couldn't make out. The voice sounded familiar, so familiar...

"Fai?" Ashura said, swiveling his head. But he was alone, utterly alone with the primordial basis of all things, with the web of dreams, and with the soul-shattering truths that everything here encompassed.

Fai. Fai was all that he had left, Fai was all he could save. Deep down, he had always understood that fact, had always struggled with that knowledge, had denied its inevitability but always returned to it. Seresu had to die for all the other worlds in existence to live, but Fai need not die along with it.

There must be a chance for Fai...

With a tremor, he recalled that the Witch of Dimensions had believed that Fai could survive. In fact, he had been under the impression that she wanted Fai to survive, that he was a part of her mysterious plans. She had an agenda for him. Surely, surely, that must mean there was a way to save Fai, a way for him to live beyond Seresu's death. And Ashura knew that meant removing Fai's curses, especially the second curse that the dark sorcerer had designed to swallow the world and take Fai with it.

As Ashura had always known, stripping those curses was the only way open for him to save Fai. And he had only ever discovered one way to accomplish that feat.

It always came back to forcing his poor Fai to kill him, didn't it?

Ashura made himself again trace the paths through the web of dreams, seeking a route that led to Fai's salvation. It seemed hopeless. There were dreams of success, dreams where Fai killed him, where the vile second curse was lifted. But those dreams merely showed Ashura things that he already knew. The dark sorcerer had done his work well. His second curse had been carefully crafted to be a cruel, inescapable trap, no matter whether it was lifted or whether it manifested.

The terrible act required to free Fai from that curse would also destroy his soul. Fai had been conditioned by his early childhood to believe that he was the fount of all misfortune and disaster around him. He believed he and his brother had been the sole reason that Valeria's ruler had gone mad and destroyed his own country. Fai would recognize the parallels, and believe that he was the reason Ashura would go mad and murder Seresu. Killing his foster father would drive the final, fatal stake through Fai's broken heart and shatter him completely.

Ashura saw clearly the alternate future that the sorcerer also must have seen and planned for: After killing Ashura, Fai would die. In a flood of crushing despair and grief and guilt that made him unable to live with his actions, he would inevitably take his own life. And Ashura saw even farther, here in the place where dreams were so accessible. He saw that whenever Fai died, whether on or before that awful day, all reality eventually succumbed to the maelstrom of unreason and followed him into the final death.

Ashura panted, near overwhelmed by what he saw. He pressed a hand to his chest and attempted to still his growing panic. As incomprehensible as it seemed to him, the truth was inescapable. For reasons he had not yet divined, all of reality could only continue to exist if Fai lived to adulthood and also managed to survive his second curse. Whatever that dark, sadistic sorcerer had planned, whatever his motives, his intended disposal of Fai would result in the obliteration of...of everything.

It had already begun. The effects were clear, the signs unmistakable: the shattered obsidian that Ashura knelt upon, the starless, cracked sky, the feeling of raw, primal energy, unformed and aimless. The web of dreams was even now weaving a broken creation. For the present, reality was holding its shape, but the damage would only progress, growing worse and worse, until it all crumbled to dust and was lost in the ultimate void.

Did that monster of a sorcerer understand what he had done? Did he even care? What could possibly be his goal?

What could be worth such a final, abhorrent price?

And Fai, the recipient of so much horror, the object of that sorcerer's viciousness and schemes... Somehow, Fai's fate would decide the fate of the universe. Just as Ashura's own fate and the fate of Seresu would decide Fai's. Fates that both the dark sorcerer and the Witch of Dimensions were attempting to shape, each according to their own desires.

Ashura wondered if it had been a blessing or a curse that the Witch had hijacked his desperate, self-destructive wish, so many months ago.

Both. It was both.

She had bent his wish to her own purposes, and in so doing had granted him and Fai both relief from their past miseries, and an opportunity to experience the love and happiness of a parent and child. But she had only done it to advance her own, long-ranging plans, her agenda for Fai's life and soul.

It seemed that Fai was an important piece in some great, unfathomable game, maneuvered about the board by two incomprehensible rivals, and all existence hinged upon the contest's outcome.

Ashura cursed the Witch and the sorcerer for their machinations, even as he thanked them for the blessing they had both bestowed upon him, no matter their opposing and manipulative intentions. The precious blessing of his child.

And now he had to protect and preserve that blessing from the curses that had been bestowed along with it.

His mind ranged over the possibilities available to him. They were limited, but he believed that somewhere, somehow, there must be a way to save Fai. Seresu was lost, but Fai had to survive. Reality needed him to survive his curses. The Witch needed him for her own schemes, and she had all but said there was a way. She might mean ill to Ashura and his world, using Ashura's wish as the means to further her own ends, but she wanted Fai whole and healed and able to live. That was the bargain she had struck with Ashura. Fai's healing was part of the payment for Ashura's wish to die.

He would get his wish whether or not Fai healed and lived. Ashura's original reasons for that particular wish were for naught, since no matter when or how he died Seresu was still condemned. But Seresu's death would have meaning if it saved all reality. Likewise, his own death could have meaning if it saved Fai.

That must have been the Witch's aim all along. Her power was greater than even that of the gods; she must have understood what it all meant, how the various pieces were placed, and seen how to encourage them along a course that could lead to continued life for all things. No wonder she had extracted such an odd payment from him. Why demand that Fai be healed if the child's only destiny was to die from suicide or his second curse? Why bother to create a future for Fai, if there was no future for existence?

No, she must have already foreseen what Ashura had only just now glimpsed. She wanted Fai to survive, so that everything else could also survive. Everything but Seresu, another piece in the infinite game, one that must be sacrificed for the greater good...

Another sob quavered in Ashura's ears, louder this time, and the beloved voice spoke in desperate, pleading tones. Invisible hands tugged on his clothes. Ashura hardened his heart against the sounds and sensations. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted from this all-important task. His eyes continued to scan the threads that connected the web of dreams, following path after path after path. He had seen it before; he knew the possibility for light and life still existed somewhere. Yet now that specific vision eluded him.

Despair filled him. Every dream he touched felt hopeless, futile. So many ways for Fai to die, so many ways for all the worlds in all the dimensions to perish. Why? What forces would that whoreson of a sorcerer unleash and set in motion, that would drag everything down into anarchy and eventual nonexistence? Why was the universe so dependent on Fai and that wretched curse?

And then Ashura found it, the single pathway that shone with hope. It was thin, frail, but it fought against the relentless current of loss and climbed beyond the void. A path for Fai, a path where he escaped his curse, where there was a future for him, and for everything else, as well.

Other paths joined with it as tributaries combined to form a surging river, making it larger and stronger, and it flowed through many worlds. Ashura couldn't see those other roads clearly, nor the determined souls who trod upon them. Yet he understood that they also were called to that same great destiny as Fai. That through their travails, their defeats and their tears and their victories, they would all unite to somehow lead reality out of chaos and back to its proper order.

But the forces arrayed against that shining river of life were immense, and the chances for failure were still too great. Everything had to work out perfectly, events had to occur at exactly the right times. Everyone involved had to make the correct, inevitable choices to keep it moving forward. One false step, one bad choice, and that current would falter, its momentum broken as though against great boulders or a dam, and all would ultimately be lost.

It seemed terribly unlikely that the one hopeful future as it now appeared would continue forward long enough to be strengthened by all those other adjoining paths, and yet there it was, struggling against the dreadful odds, the malign powers attempting to pull it awry. Despite all the harm and hindrances, all the possibilities for mischance, those united paths and the blessed wayfarers journeying upon them created a dream in the long, long distance, a tiny pinprick of light that promised clear blue skies and warm sunshine and continued life. Life for all that existed, and life for Fai...

Fai had to join with those other children of destiny. And Seresu's sacrifice would ensure that he would leave Ashura's world, would somehow find his true calling. It was the only chance he had to live, and the only chance for all of creation to continue existing.

Ashura had brought Fai to Seresu, and ultimately he would drive Fai away. It was necessary, all of it was necessary, no matter how much pain they must both endure.

But even after Fai embarked on his inevitable journey, that second curse could shatter and nullify every hope gained. It had to be removed. He had to force Fai to perform the unthinkable to break that curse, and he needed to find the way to prevent Fai from committing suicide after he was freed at last...

More pleas murmured in Ashura's ears, and the tugging sensations grew stronger. A splash of moisture dripped onto his face from somewhere above him. He captured the drop with a fingertip and held it up to inspect it, wondering where it had come from. An image of Fai's tear-drenched face filled his sight then was gone, replaced again by the broken obsidian land and the torn sky.

"Just a little longer," Ashura said to the unseen presence that called to him. "Please, just wait a little longer."

He focused on that thin path, that fragile ribbon of life. He had to see the details of that dream, the sequence of events that could save Fai. He had to learn of what he must do to help that future succeed. Now that he knew it was possible, he would do whatever it took, whatever the dream showed him. Cost was irrelevant. He would pay whatever price it demanded of him. He would suffer even Fai's eternal hatred and contempt if it meant saving his child.

He reached out to the dream, so far away, yet almost close enough to touch...

Another tear fell from the formless, ever-forming sky and splashed onto his forehead. Two small, warm hands gripped his and pulled him off balance. His heart, until now beating in unison with that of the black land, gave several rapid thumps and fell into its own natural, separate rhythm. The web of dreams wavered, and a peculiar mixture of darkness and flickering light encroached in the edges of his vision.

"No," he gasped, fighting against the irresistible draw on his soul. "No, not yet! Please—" He wouldn't lose his only chance to find the future that saved Fai. He couldn't! But he knew he also couldn't remain for much longer. This was not a place for mortals. He shouldn't be here at all, seeing what not even gods were privileged to view.

Only a bizarre series of circumstances had brought him here, and they were unlikely to ever be repeated. He would never be able to find his own way back. He would be reduced once more to searching from within the dream space, to walking the tangled paths of destiny without a map, without even a general direction toward his ultimate goal. He couldn't leave yet, he couldn't, not before he saw the dream and made it his own. He had to learn how to create that future, how to save Fai...

The sky opened up and a deluge of tears poured down like rain. The black land overflowed, and a wall of salt water towered over him for a breathless moment and then crashed down, forming a great, whirling vortex that funneled beyond oblivion and into a tunnel of golden light.


	70. Chapter 70

Fai didn't know how long he lay there, feeling wetness on his face and listening to the king breathe, and enduring the brutal force of the king's terrible dreams and the strange, combined sense of closeness and incredible distance. He just kept his eyes closed and suffered through it. He deserved to suffer it all.

At some point it seemed as though a weight lifted from him, and there was a sudden absence of pain, and he realized that the nightmares had ceased. Fai held perfectly still, and then he felt a hand stroke his hair. He refused to open his eyes, certain that he must be asleep and only dreaming of happier times. The hand petted him again, and gentle fingers ran down his cheek, brushing at the moisture that still lingered. Fai lifted his head.

King Ashura regarded him seriously. "Fai," he murmured. His voice sounded rough and gravelly from disuse. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"Oh," Fai said, wide-eyed. The king was awake! He wasn't going to die! Fai could barely believe it, and could only stare numbly into those kind eyes. They were so golden and perfect, just like everything else about him. It seemed only right, that when the king woke with renewed life that he would have beautiful gold eyes.

Then he moved his head, and the light must have changed, because his eyes became light brown again.

"Fai?" King Ashura asked again. "Are you all right?"

Fai couldn't help sniffling. He dragged his sleeve across his nose. "You're awake," he said, and felt fresh tears gathering. "You really woke up. I was afraid you wouldn't."

"So that's it. I suppose I slept for quite a while."

"You've been asleep for three days."

"So long?" The king didn't look surprised, though. He shifted and sat up. "Well, it doesn't matter now." He put an arm around Fai's shoulders, hugged him close, and bent to press a kiss to the top of Fai's head.

"Your magic felt so strange. You felt like you were here and also lost so far away," Fai said, "and wherever you were was really scary."

"Oh, Fai, were you feeling my dreams again?" When Fai nodded, King Ashura said, "Yes, they would have felt like that. I'm sorry I worried you." The king rubbed Fai's arm comfortingly. "It was all right, Fai, really. They were only dreams. It just took me a little time to come back from them, that's all."

"Everybody's worried. We should let them know you're awake." But Fai didn't really want to tell the others just yet. He wanted this moment all to himself, this burst of happiness and hope. The king was awake. Fai hadn't destroyed him just by living in Seresu. Maybe he wasn't an omen of misfortune anymore. Surely if he were, the king wouldn't have gotten better.

"We can tell them in a little while," King Ashura said. "I think I need a few minutes of quiet, first." He looked over at a small table set across the room, where a pitcher and cup rested. "Ah. Fai, could you get me some water? I'm a little thirsty."

"Oh. Oh, yes." Fai hurried to get the drink. While King Ashura sipped his water, Fai focused, and couldn't locate any sense of the detoxification spell. It had vanished, just like his own had gone. That must mean the king had fully recovered. But he had such a faraway look in his eyes. It made Fai worry and reminded him of how very distant and lost the king had felt while dreaming.

"Your detoxification spell is gone," Fai said. "Just like mine."

King Ashura handed Fai the cup, and Fai set it back on the table. He quickly returned to snuggle again, feeling strangely light and happy when the king once more put an arm about him and drew him in.

"That is because it served its purpose," King Ashura explained. "The spells always fade when they are no longer required. I'm glad yours worked so well." Something in his eyes grew cloudy. The faraway look increased, and his lips twisted in a slight frown of concentration. "It's difficult to remember what really happened. I recall that you looked so very ill, but I knew the spell would save you..."

"I'm okay. The healers all said so," Fai said quickly so the king wouldn't fret and make himself sick again. Fai looked down at his own stomach and rubbed it. "I miss your spell," he admitted softly. "I wish it had stayed with me. It would have been nice to keep a piece of your magic with me forever."

King Ashura didn't reply. He just closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

"Are you okay?" Fai asked, concerned again.

"I'm fine, Fai. I'm just a little tired," King Ashura said, opening his eyes again. He sounded so reassuring, but that far-off, lost look didn't go away. He looked like he was staring into some long distance that no one else could see. "I only need a little more rest."

"You're sure?" Fai asked, worried by the king's strange expression. "Everyone has been so upset. Are you sure you feel all right? Will you really be okay?"

The king cuddled Fai closer and rested his cheek against the top of Fai's head.

"Yes, Fai, don't worry. Everything will be all right," King Ashura said. "Everything will be fine."


	71. Chapter 71: Epilogue

**Epilogue**

A few weeks later, Ashura sat alone in his office at Luval Castle. A large stack of paperwork waited on his desk, but he didn't feel like tackling it. He rather wanted to go outside and watch the children play in the snow.

At his request, Sybilla and her family had stayed on for a time. Not that his brother's widow had minded; she adored the attention she received at the royal court, and of course it also affirmed and reinforced her son's position as heir to the throne. Ashura had gotten quite an earful from Vainamoinen and Suhail about the alarming rumors and assumptions that had run rampant during his drug- and magic-induced unconsciousness. Since his awakening, he had made sure that there was no question of Tancred's status, even though he now accepted that his nephew would never be king. While that future was possible, Ashura had resigned himself to the fact that he should do nothing to seek it, not even if there was a way to accomplish it without murdering Fai. Instead, Ashura knew he must allow events to run their course, so the proper future would unfold as it should. His sole comfort was that he could watch Fai grow into adulthood, although the child's curses made his life-path beyond that uncertain. Still, the continuance of Fai's life was the only destiny Ashura could hope to affect.

To make the situation even more unbearable, Ashura knew that he needed maintain appearances so his kingdom could remain stable and comfortable during the short time that remained to it. Absurdly, he should take the opportunity to teach Tancred a little about managing the various factions in Seresu, about how to apply law, about the theories and practice of governance—and about paperwork. In fact, if he were a stickler, he should make Tancred work on some of the easier issues with him. But Ashura felt resentful of that unfair demand and for the moment chose to slough it off. He simply hadn't the heart or the energy to oversee Tancred's training for a position the youngster would never assume. Perhaps later it could be done, when time dulled his raw grief and it wasn't quite such a painful task.

Not that anything was fair as matters now stood. How could he live through all the coming years, pretending nothing was wrong, that life would continue as normal? How was he supposed to look at his family, friends, and acquaintances, knowing that one day he would murder them and yet also knowing that he should do nothing to stop himself? That burden would break him to pieces before the end, he knew it in his bones.

Perhaps that was how he would ultimately go mad.

However, there was no choice, and in any case it was his destiny to go mad. It didn't matter how it happened. Life had to be lived, no matter how bitter it became. He had a duty to his people, to keep them happy and allow them to enjoy a good, prosperous life in the time they had left. It was another burden, a terrible one, because it was also a sick betrayal. How did those old peasant sayings go? Something about the fox guarding the henhouse, or a wolf herding a flock of sheep? They were poor comparisons; he was far worse than any natural predator that killed only what it needed to survive.

He reminded himself harshly that he was merely a tool, a weapon wielded by fate itself, the spear that would kill only what the rest of existence needed to survive. The spear that would create a new future, even as it sacrificed the blood of the past.

The Divine Spear of Madness.

Its final purpose, perhaps its true purpose, was breathtaking and bizarre: that a king's murderous insanity would help to prevent all of existence from spiraling down into an even more destructive and horrific madness.

How aptly that curse had been named.

Ashura pushed his chair away from his desk, leaned back, and closed his eyes, attempting to channel his thoughts onto less discouraging paths. His deep-seated, unconquerable need to nurture Fai rose up and took hold again, and he did nothing to stop it. At last he understood why he sometimes felt as though his sole reason for existing was for Fai's sake. Because, truly, that was his purpose in life. He had not been born to save Seresu from some preordained Threat, but rather to sacrifice it himself, for Fai's sake, and for the sake of all that existed.

He would never again try to deny or bury that need to nurture Fai. It was the only thing that kept him from having constant screaming fits.

He smiled bitterly. Wouldn't his court and councilors love that on top of every other alarm he had given them since deep winter? No, he had to maintain the pretense that all was well. He had Fai. He would be content with that.

That was why he had asked Sybilla to remain in Luval with her children, rather than immediately returning home once he had arrived and the crisis had passed. For the time being, at least, Fai had some playmates again. The boy still showed a disconcerting reluctance to engage with the other noble children presently at court, but with Mielu and Virender he relaxed a little.

Overnight, there had been a heavy snow shower, something of a rarity considering the season. Although the mountains remained cold throughout the year, snowfalls didn't normally occur during the dry summer months. The hard, packed ice and frozen ground were now covered with a fresh, fluffy blanket of inviting white snow. Seeing it, Virender and Mielu had decided they wanted to go sledding, and had dragged Fai off with them. Fai had professed that he didn't know how, but they had promised to teach him. Even Tancred hadn't been able to resist the new snow's allure, despite the mature sobriety and gravity that his worldly thirteen years lent him.

Ashura was sorry to be missing the fun.

But there was no real reason to miss it entirely, was there? He didn't have to be physically present.

Swiftly, he conjured a scrying crystal of colorless, flawless ice, taking care that one facet should be wide and perfectly flat. He made it hover in the air before him so he could view the images comfortably. The smooth surface showed the scene on a snow-covered slope, just outside the stone curtain walls of the defensive garrison beneath the floating mountain. The children were there with their sleds. Watching over them were a number of servants, guards, and even a few members of the court. With an upwelling of pleasure, Ashura observed the children at play, noting that Fai had already learned the basics and showed some competence at the game.

A pity he had missed seeing Fai learn. He resolved to be more alert in the future to such small joys, and take the time to appreciate them when they arose.

There came a light tap on his office door, and a voice ghosted in on a thread of magic: "Cousin?"

"Come in, Kendappa," he said, a little annoyed at being interrupted during his break. He hoped she didn't have anything important to dump in his lap.

She didn't. After her usual curtsey and greeting, she dimpled and commented, "Hard at work, I see."

Ashura didn't bother to make excuses. Why should he? He was the king. He could take a break if he wanted. "Have you come just to nag me to work harder, cousin?"

"I came to escape from Sybilla's company for a while," she replied tartly. "That woman is monopolizing the court."

"Her eldest son is the heir to the throne. That does give her some extra status, you know," Ashura returned mildly, hiding the pain that ripped through him at the simple statement of what should have been an ordinary, unexceptional fact.

Kendappa huffed and came over by him so she could also watch the hijinks displayed by the crystal. "Oh, they look like they're enjoying themselves." She peered closer. "It's a shame that Fai still never smiles, even when he's playing. With his features, he would have such a beautiful smile."

Yes, Fai would have a beautiful smile. Ashura had never seen it, though, not even in his dreams. He wondered if he ever would.

He only said, "Considering his past, it's a miracle that he even plays at all." For that, Ashura would always be pathetically grateful to Virender, Mielu, and their irrepressible ways. Even Tancred had helped. "I'm sure he'll smile someday, once he's healed a little more and is ready." Ashura's heart wrenched a little, and he watched the scene with a melancholy smile of his own.

She gave him a sly look. "You aren't getting anything useful done. You might as well go outside and join them. I can tell you'd rather be there than here."

"Maybe later." Even as he said it, he realized that this was one of those small joys he had just promised himself he would no longer forgo. His cousin was right. He should go out there and offer encouragements and praise, just like any normal parent. Who would tell the king he couldn't take a break to spend some time with his child?

On the scrying crystal, Mielu grabbed her sled and raced down to the bottom of the slope, where Fai was waiting. Unfortunately, she turned the sled in just the wrong way and managed to flip it into a snow drift. Fai ran to help her, but she was fine. She got up, laughing. At the top of the slope, Tancred and Virender jeered at her for her clumsiness. She stuck her tongue out at them, then bent and gathered some snow into two large balls. Using magic, she launched the snowballs up at her brothers, and caught them both squarely in their midsections. In retaliation, Virender and Tancred levitated a great mass of loose snow and tossed it in her direction.

Snow fights took on a whole new dimension when young magicians were involved. Wistfully, Ashura recalled similar misadventures with Tendulkar and Kendappa.

Mielu hadn't yet reacted to her brothers' attack when Fai threw up an impressive defensive shield. The flying barrage of snow broke upon it and slid harmlessly to the ground. Fai's technique was rough, Ashura noted, and the barrier was far too strong and large for the game, but still it was well done.

Kendappa remarked, "How excellently he created that shield."

And how excellently playtime honed basic instincts, Ashura reflected. During the Arimaspi attack, Fai hadn't had the instinct to defend himself with his magic. But soon, he would be able to create such barriers without any thought at all. Training was good for developing skills and proper habits, but such things could also become ingrained through play.

"I should have taught him that spell first, rather than the magelight," Ashura idly commented. "We would have avoided that first explosion." Basic defensive shields didn't require any particular finesse, and extra power pushed into them only made them larger and stronger. Of course, given Fai's immense power and trouble with control, a shield might have grown so large that it burst through the castle walls during that early spell-casting lesson...

Kendappa's next words echoed his thoughts almost exactly. "With that child's power, any shield he created would probably have crushed all your furniture and broken the walls, too."

"True. Fai is already so strong, he could stop an avalanche with his shields, if he really wanted," Ashura said proudly. Tancred and Virender's little snow attack was nothing compared to the excessive shield Fai had created. And he hadn't even really been trying all that hard. How much more impressive would he soon become?

"I'm certain he could," she said. "No matter what, cousin, you were doomed to disaster until he learned a little moderation." She laughed. "I hope you have gained some sympathy for all of Suhail's travails back when he was attempting to teach you moderation, as well. Fai is worse than you were at that age, but the comparison cannot be avoided."

"Suhail occasionally reminds me of that," Ashura said with a smile. "Rather smugly, in fact. Even though it has been many years since his sad trials and tribulations with me, he is inordinately pleased with this form of revenge. It keeps his own hands clean."

Kendappa chortled.

They watched the snow fight, its cessation without any clear victors, and the resumption of sledding down the hill.

Ashura felt another surge of pleasure. Fai could have won the silly battle easily. That he hadn't abused his greater power spoke well for him. It was just as well, considering what was to come in the distant future. He was such a prodigy with magic, and his power just kept growing, so much faster than any ordinary mage's. "I believe Fai will soon manifest his wizard's staff," he said quietly and with some trepidation.

"Already?" Kendappa looked startled. "He's strong, true, but he still has so little training and experience."

"He's been fascinated by the staves since he first saw them, and he is rather precocious." Ashura paused while Kendappa snorted at that jewel of understatement. He added, "I doubt we will even be granted enough warning to hold the usual ceremony. Some day soon, he will no doubt feel an overwhelming desire for his own staff, and then..." He raised his hands and shrugged. "I suppose I had better begin looking for a suitable focus stone. It will have to be particularly durable to magical forces, as it will be required to channel and refine rather unusual amounts and types of power."

"Oh, dear," his cousin sighed, but not without an element of amusement. "Well, we'll all just have to deal with that eventuality when it arises. It will certainly put Sybilla's nose out of joint. Neither Virender nor Mielu have their staves yet, although they will become powerful enough to be full-fledged wizards. And they are older than Fai and have much more training."

She didn't sound particularly displeased about Sybilla's coming discomfiture. Ashura shook his head. "Fai's power and natural ability more than make up for his lack of formal education, and he is always striving to learn more. Magic is one area of study that he never neglects." Unlike mathematics, Ashura thought humorously. Fai would probably never come to appreciate the abstraction and manipulation of numbers.

"You'd better start preparing," she told him with a smirk. "The day he begins to experiment—"

"I am often kept up at night by thoughts of just that inevitability."

She laughed again, easily and lightly. "At least you admit it is inevitable." She moved to the door, and looked back at him. "You really should go outside with the children. I think I will, even if you won't. Maybe I'll even try a turn at sledding."

Knowing well her sense of public decorum, Ashura rather doubted that she would do any such thing.

Her expression took on serious, slightly sad look. "Don't wait too long, Ashura, or you'll miss it all." She left.

That was wisdom worthy of rubies. Wasn't that the lament of all parents? That their children grew up too fast, and they had somehow missed it?

If only Fai could stay a child forever. Ashura feared desperately for his son's adulthood, and what it meant, but he was committed now.

He got up and went to stare out the window. The courtyard it overlooked was filled with snow, and a few guardsmen wandered through. The view offered no consolation against the sudden memories that rose with vicious brutality. Memories of his last dream-vision, the vision that had truly condemned him and Seresu. The unwelcome, undeniable knowledge it had brought him, and along with it the forced acceptance of inescapable destiny.

He felt hysterical laughter welling up inside him, and suppressed it ruthlessly. Even before he had had that last vision of reality's underpinnings with its revelations and overview of events, he had made his choices. All his choices, but especially his choice to save Fai at his country's ultimate expense, when he had turned away from the path to Seresu's survival and instead willingly journeyed to the river of blood. He had made those decisions selfishly, and for all the wrong reasons. That they had turned out to be the correct choices did nothing to absolve his sense of guilt.

The Witch of Dimensions' face rose up before him. At his meeting with her in her own abode, so many months ago, she had used an unfamiliar word for the making of destiny: hitsuzen. She had defined it as the culmination of the inevitable choices and events that made up his life, that made up everyone's lives. At the time, he hadn't understood what she meant. He thought he did now.

Whenever self-pity engulfed him, and his heart cried out, "Why me? Why Seresu?" he ruthlessly replied, "Hitsuzen." The paths of destiny he followed, the paths of everyone connected to him, either physically or mystically, all had led up to this inevitable result. Fai, the Witch of Dimensions, even the dark sorcerer: their actions, their mere existences, had all helped to create his current reality. His destiny was a product not only of his own choices, but also of theirs, as well as myriads of people in his world and even in other worlds whose fates were all entangled with his own. Likewise, the present and all possible futures, everywhere, were also the products of all those intertwined destinies. He didn't know how it had all begun, nor how it would end, but he knew what future he must strive to create.

It didn't matter that he had chosen Fai's life over Seresu's for the wrong reasons, since his choices would lead to the result that he now believed the Witch desired. And he desired it, too, even while he regretted the necessity of his own future actions. His poor, mortal mind couldn't even begin to comprehend the full consequences of the overwhelming destruction he had foreseen, but he didn't want to see all existence collapse into chaos and an ultimate annihilation from which no renewal was possible. He wanted it all to survive, to continue, to flourish.

To live.

He would never stop grieving, though, that there was only one path that could prevent that final doom from occurring and gain hope for the continuance of every other world in existence. He would feel the weight of the grim sacrifice required to secure that path for all his remaining days. And worse, he might never know if that sacrifice would achieve the desired ends, or if all would ultimately fail due to a misstep by some other poor, doomed tool of fate.

He returned to his desk and stood by it, looking down at the mundane matters that awaited him, at the papers that cluttered the polished, wooden surface. How foolish and irrelevant they seemed to him now, when just a year ago they would have occupied his entire attention.

Foremost among them were letters and petitions calling for war against Arimaspea. Not just from the aristocracy, but also the guilds and the freeholders. Notable were the outraged missives from Taishakuten. That warlord had been incessant in his demands that the Arimaspi be punished for their most recent atrocity. Even the Council of Nobles agreed that war in this instance was both necessary and desirable. The Arimaspi should be taught a sharp lesson, Ashura's councilors told him at every opportunity.

Wait until they got the new tax levy, Ashura thought cynically. Only a fool went to war without gathering sufficient funds. The extra drain on the nobles' and merchants' strongboxes might dampen their bloodlust a bit.

Taishakuten and the others weren't wrong, though. Under normal circumstances, there would be no question of what to do, and Ashura would already be leading an army to the border. But circumstances were not normal, and, as had happened so often in the past months, he found himself hesitating.

Ashura didn't particularly care about what the Arimaspi had done to him; he would accept any punishment that providence brought down upon him as heavenly justice for his future depredations. He was, however, still angry that they had dared to harm Fai and threatened Seresu's internal balance of power between the mages and the non-magical folk. A few border raids were nothing, but now the Arimaspi had gone too far. Their new magic, their incursion into the Southlands, their drug—all those things demanded a harsh response. Else King Skudra would just continue to press his new advantages harder and harder, and war would come anyway.

He knew it, and Skudra knew it. War would come. Ashura could take control now, or wait until the Arimaspi grew too strong and a positive outcome for Seresu became less certain. He knew what choice he must make.

And that grieved him, as well, that his people should waste their lives and their wealth in a pointless war during the limited time they had left. But they didn't know that the war was ultimately futile, that their futures would be cut short in less than two decades. They believed only that a greater good could be achieved.

Well, that and revenge, Ashura thought with renewed cynicism. Not to mention increased wealth and power. The tone of the letters demanding war was plain enough to him, no matter how contrived and elegant the phrases.

Besides, better that Seresu should spend its final days under his rule than Skudra's. The end result would be the same, but an existence under Arimaspi control would be ugly, especially for the mages. Ashura didn't even want to think about what life would be like for the Seresian magicians in that instance. And if the Arimaspi killed him before Fai...

The result of that particular stupidity would serve them right, even as it condemned all that existed to a final doom. It would almost certainly happen that way, but even if it didn't, even if they killed Fai before him, that unthinkable, ultimate fate for all reality would still be sealed.

And with that thought, he realized that his decision was already made for him. There could be no turning back. He and Fai both had to live and fulfill their respective destinies.

For himself, he didn't really believe that his curse would allow him be killed prematurely, any more than it allowed him to commit suicide before his time came, but he couldn't be absolutely certain. Likewise, he no longer trusted that his bargain with the Witch of Dimensions guaranteed his continued life. His painfully acquired knowledge of the other paths to different, even more disastrous futures had planted a terrible seed of doubt.

At some point, he knew that someone would have to kill him and that it would be permitted by the Divine Spear of Madness. For safety's sake, he had to assume the worst and live accordingly. He could not allow himself to die too soon. Fai's second curse and the survival of all existence must guide both the greatest and the smallest of his activities and choices for every day of the rest of his unbearably long life.

Maybe the inevitable war need not be a purposeless waste of resources, lives, and precious time. Ashura wondered what effect the forced annexation of some part of Arimaspea might have for the future. A successful conclusion to the conflict would expand Seresu's borders. Would it also increase the blood-magic available for him to steal through murder when he finally went berserk?

He had no way of knowing. The Arimaspi would never be native Seresians. That would require them to be born within Seresu's borders. In the past, the borders had changed often enough, shrinking and expanding with property transfers through careful marriages, war, or new settlements in the once empty north. However, Ashura did not know how adding Arimaspi blood to Seresu through expansion of the southern border would affect the Divine Spear. He had no idea whether it and his own bloodlust would find the newly acquired population to be an acceptable sacrifice for power, or if the Arimaspi would always be outsiders who had no mystical connections to the Land and its Sacral King.

He only knew that, even if he stole all the blood-magic in Seresu, he still might not gain enough power to trigger Fai's first curse and save him from the manifestation of his second.

That was not a new concern. The only change was what effects and forms an influx of Arimaspi into Seresu's native population might take. Ultimately, Ashura knew he had to plan as though the addition of foreign blood would make no difference to his curse. He could hope that the new peoples would positively affect the outcome, but he dare not rely upon it.

Ashura stretched out both arms before him, palms up, and manifested his latest project. The symbol of the royal house, the interlaced Phoenix of Vanir, formed above his open hands, glowing brightly. He had begun creating the spell not long after returning to Luval from the Southlands.

The spell's beauty belied its true, loathsome purpose.

No matter how Ashura had struggled against the truth, he had always known, deep in his soul, that the way to save Fai was to force the child to kill him. He had always understood that the surest way to achieve that goal was to trigger Fai's first curse, the curse that compelled Fai to murder the first magician he encountered who was stronger than him. Once Fai did what was necessary, both curses would be broken and never trouble him again.

This appalling spell, shining with deceptive promise, would help to achieve that goal. It was a vital piece in Ashura's long-term plans. It would check Fai's power and give Ashura a chance to surpass his son's magical strength, through his coming insanity and acts of murder. Then the fulfillment of Fai's first curse would satisfy the demands of the second, and satisfy divine justice, as well.

If Ashura succeeded, his son would be free of the dark sorcerer's influence and interference. Ashura smiled viciously. He would also have his revenge on that scab of a sorcerer by ruining his plot to dispose of Fai. Possibly Fai's freedom and continued life would have the fortunate effect of disrupting even more of that vile man's poisonous intrigues. Ashura certainly hoped so.

And more, by raising Fai to be a decent person, Ashura had unwittingly found another way to foul the sorcerer's machinations. His gentle and compassionate Fai would never blithely go along with whatever black-hearted scheme that sadistic monster was trying to accomplish, no matter what misguided promises had been made.

"A schedule to meet," Ashura whispered, recalling the mocking words the dark sorcerer had once spoken to him in a nightmarish dream-trap. "You have a schedule to meet, and a little bird needs to be pushed from his nice, comfortable nest at just the right time."

That sorcerer had used the words as a weapon, as a knife to cut deeply into Ashura's heart, but he had also spoken the absolute, unvarnished truth. And that was what now made those words so much more painful.

"My little bird," Ashura murmured, gazing regretfully at the phoenix spell. "My poor, poor Fai. Your road will be hard, but from the ashes of Seresu you will rise and create a new future for all."

No matter what else occurred, Fai would be driven away from Seresu by Ashura's madness and crimes of bloodlust, just as the sorcerer intended, and as Ashura believed the Witch of Dimensions also desired. It was both necessary and unavoidable. Ashura knew his son would never abandon him without extreme provocation, and so he would provide the necessary push, and more. Then, as must happen, Fai's pain and his past would cause him to flee the massacre that would so resemble what had happened to his birth country.

Only by leaving Seresu could Fai unite with those other bright souls that Ashura had foreseen, those disparate life-paths that would become one and somehow save the universe. Ashura didn't know what they had to do, or how they needed to do it, but he did know that they had to come together, each at their proper times. Fai had to find and join them. If any of them failed, if just one missed the necessary meeting, the future would come apart at the seams, and all would be lost forever.

But if it all worked out as Ashura hoped, that sorry sorcerer's intentions for Fai would be utterly foiled. Ashura rather hoped the whoreson chewed his own arm off in frustration.

He suspected that he might also be interfering with the Witch of Dimensions' plans, but that was just too bad for her. Ashura believed she wanted Fai to live along with the rest of reality, so she could just make do with the actions he would take to create that future. He thought it more than fair, considering that she had helped to create this mess. She could rework her strategy if she didn't like how her tool managed things, he thought cynically.

Ashura intended to put his inevitable madness to a dual purpose: to drive Fai toward his destiny, and also to save him from losing himself to that same destiny. Fai might have no choice but to embark on his terrible, preordained journey, but he need not venture out chained by the malign sorcerer's curses. Ashura had always hoped to strip those curses, but now he sought to do it before Fai departed, to save his child from the doom the sorcerer planned. Fai would be unencumbered by the sorcerer's schemes, free to make his own choices unhindered by the sorcerer's influence. However, Ashura also knew that the currents of time were against him. It was no light thing to change the future. There was always so much momentum driving it forward, momentum generated by countless lives and events that could not be controlled by any one person. Equally, the softest whisper at just the right moment could undo what changes were possible and set the future onto the path to disaster. Its contradictory nature was maddening.

Ashura had never succeeded any other time he had tried to alter the flow of events. There was a strong possibility that he would fail in this attempt, as well.

But even if he failed to remove the sorcerer's curses before Fai ran away from Seresu, he would still have a second chance to save his son. In every future where Ashura lived beyond the murder his country, Fai would return home with his companions of fate. In those prophetic dreams, he and Fai would meet—and part—one last time.

Though Ashura had already foreseen that he would die by the wrong hand during that final meeting, he still nurtured hope that he could alter that particular future. It would be his last chance, but he had to succeed. All would be lost if Fai's second curse destroyed him.

Even so, even as he again considered the annihilation that might come, Ashura found that that was not the most important thing in the deepest, most secret places of his heart. He wanted the universe to survive, yes...but even more, he wanted Fai to survive. He knew it was wrong of him, but he would gladly let all of creation burn if it meant that Fai could live. With brutal honesty, he acknowledged it was merely convenient to him that saving Fai meant saving everything else, as well.

Ashura's eyes scanned every graceful, interlaced line, every intricate knot of his spell. He would soon use the phoenix pattern to mark Fai, and suppress the growth of the child's power. That abominable act would start them both down a dark path from which there could be no retreat.

It didn't matter. After all he had learned, Ashura knew he could no longer remain an unwitting game piece maneuvered about on the cosmic halatafl board at the will of others. Now he must make his own moves, advance his own agenda. He and his country might be disposable in the game he played, but Fai was not. He would not allow Fai to be used and discarded at the whim of two ruthless, godlike magicians, no matter how much power they wielded. No matter what price had to be paid.

He would set his own schemes in motion, schemes that would oppose the sorcerer's, schemes that were probably at odds with the Witch's. He would lay all the groundwork he could, advance his own game throughout the time he had left among the living, and then trust that further events would unfold as he hoped.

The phoenix spell shimmered with light, radiant and beautiful as a clear winter's day, and despite its necessity, the guilt at what he planned near overwhelmed him.

Ashura knew he would never need to explain or justify himself for restraining Fai's power. None of his people would ever question why he had done it. Fai himself had provided the reasons; he had had two catastrophic magical outbursts in less than a year. No, Ashura's wizards and councilors would praise his wisdom, his foresight, and his pragmatism. They would reassure him that it was for the best, that he had only done what was necessary for the safety of both the country and Fai. They would believe he had done it as a precaution against even worse outbursts were Fai's power allowed to grow too quickly to even more dangerous levels.

And then, if all played out as Ashura intended, Fai would be freed. Many years hence, when Ashura's madness consumed him, when he finally murdered his entire country and stole all the magic and life essence from his people, he might become just that little bit stronger than Fai. Just enough, just enough, at just the right time, and for only the brief moment required for Fai to strike and kill him.

Ashura had a great deal of work to do before then. First he had to complete the spell. He could not rush at this task. This enchantment had to be the most perfect, the most complete, and the most beautiful and terrible spell he had ever created. It would be his masterpiece, this spell.

Fai would accept it willingly, even with great happiness. Ashura remembered his son's confession, how Fai had desired a piece of Ashura's magic to carry with him forever. So Ashura would make use of that innocent wish, and bestow upon Fai this magical marking, this betrayal of a wounded child's love and trust. The spell wouldn't last forever, though. It would die when Ashura did, freeing Fai's power to develop as it should. And by then Fai might very well wish to purge himself of all reminders that Ashura had ever been a part of his life.

But that wasn't Ashura's only task. He recalled all too well the varied paths he had seen in his last vision of the true nature of the reality, and the innumerable roads through the dreamscape that led to Fai's death. His foolish son wouldn't understand that Ashura did this to save him. All Fai would know was that he had been compelled to kill his foster father against his will. He would hate himself for it even though by then he would have learned that Ashura was a monster who deserved to die. Fai would fall victim to his Valerian childhood and conditioning, and become lost to despair. Ashura had seen so many paths that led to Fai's suicide, and they had all stemmed from the very act of regicide that Ashura wished Fai to commit.

It was essential that Fai live. Ashura dearly loved him and wanted him to have a full life. That meant the rest of the universe also had to live, so that Fai would have a place to enjoy his allotted number of years. Therefore Fai couldn't die, because his death would lead to the end of all things. The reasoning was circular, yet made a twisted kind of sense. Everything was so horribly intertwined; the small, insignificant lives of Ashura and Fai and Seresu were wound together with the greater infinity of all the worlds in existence.

Somehow, Ashura had to ease Fai's early conditioning; he had to convince his son that sometimes ugly events were beyond anyone's control. He had to teach Fai to forgive himself for the inevitable outcomes of actions that could be neither avoided nor averted. It would be a difficult undertaking, even with a normal child. With Fai and his horrific past, it might well be nigh impossible.

Suddenly, the seventeen years that the Witch had demanded of Ashura didn't seem very long. It barely seemed enough time at all.

With reluctance, Ashura decided that, for insurance, he should take a page from the dark sorcerer's book. That sadistic monster had extracted Fai's cooperation by promising the resurrection of Fai's brother. It was impossible, against all the laws of life and the universe, and Ashura knew the sorcerer intended to renege on the agreement. But that didn't matter. For the resumption of his brother's life, Fai would do anything. Anything.

He would even keep living after killing Ashura...

Ashura had already planned to make use of that argument. Now, though, he resolved to subtly reinforce it. He would never tell Fai the truth, never tell him that such a resurrection was impossible. He would never discourage Fai from searching out ways that might accomplish it. He would allow Fai to believe in the forbidden. Perhaps, if it seemed necessary, he would even hint that there were rumors of such resurrections in other worlds—under the right conditions and if a wizard were strong enough and knew the right secrets. Of course, were he to follow that course, he would also have to deny—quite honestly—that he himself was neither knowledgeable nor capable in that regard. It wouldn't do to be asked for the unattainable and caught out in his deceptions.

He would do these horrible, unspeakable things so that one day, if it became needful, if there were no other choice, he could use that impossible belief against Fai, to convince him to keep living so he could search out a way to undo his brother's death. Ashura already knew the argument he must make. Who, he would say, would bring Fai's twin back to life after Fai himself had ceased living? Without Fai, the twin would remain dead forever and ever.

Even as an adult, that argument should resonate in the deepest, darkest, most hidden corners of Fai's soul.

It was yet another betrayal. And it would only bring Fai more pain once he realized that Ashura had lied, that his brother's life could never be restored. But at least Fai would live past Ashura's death, and perhaps those companions of fate that Ashura had foreseen would help Fai through his grief and keep him moving forward, even after he at last understood the truth about the finality of death.

Ashura knew he was grasping at straws again; he could only hope that those others would be true comrades, and not just companions of convenience who would offer no solace. They were foreordained to journey together, to join for the sake of all things. Surely they would not allow Fai to kill himself over the coming debacle.

Surely not.

"I pray they are worthy of you, my Fai," Ashura whispered. He looked through the window, up at the overcast sky, and beseeched the heavens to bestow just a tiny portion of mercy upon his son. "Please, please, let them be worthy."

Ashura had never hated himself more. Every time he wondered if it were possible to do so, he found a way to make things worse. But it was necessary. Fai had to survive beyond that day.

"Forgive me, Fai, for what I must do." But Ashura knew there could be no forgiveness for what he planned. He gazed forlornly at the phoenix pattern hovering above his open palms, the brightly glowing symbol of his betrayals and lies and desperate stratagems. No matter the ultimate good this spell would do, he didn't want to use it. More than anything, he wanted to see Fai's power grow and flourish. He wanted to see Fai realize his amazing potential as a magician, and as a man.

One wish would be granted, but the other could not. He would see Fai reach adulthood, but he would never see Fai reach his full, magical potential, not if he wanted Fai to live and be free of the sadistic sorcerer's curses and manipulations.

It was yet another heart-rending inevitability masquerading as a choice. But, of course, there was no choice, none at all. Not for him, and not for Fai.

Ashura wondered how long he could put off using the spell before the magnitude of Fai's power passed the point of no return. There were limits to his gambit, he knew. If he allowed Fai's power to continue growing naturally and unrestrained, eventually it would achieve a degree of potency that Ashura could never surpass, whether he applied the restraining spell or not. He should not allow his heart to rule him on this matter; he should not procrastinate on this most important of obligations. He should use the spell as soon as it was ready. He should.

He would.

But he needn't worry about that now. The spell wasn't ready yet. It would be many months, maybe even a year or two, before it was perfected. He could watch Fai's power grow for a little longer.

He banished the phoenix marking, and turned his attention back to the ice crystal. It still displayed the children at play. The unusual summer snow had again begun to fall from the cloudy sky: light, fluffy flakes that drifted gracefully to the ground. Some of the adults supervising the children had sat down, uncaring of the snow that would melt and wet their clothes. In contrast, the children seemed tireless.

Kendappa had already changed into outdoor clothing and teleported down. She was among the watchers, calling encouragement as Fai took his sled down the hill. Ashura recalled her last words to him, that he would miss out on all the fun if he waited too long.

Just as he shouldn't wait too long to apply the restraining spell to Fai, he shouldn't wait too long to enjoy his son's childhood. It would be so painfully brief.

Maybe he would even take a turn sliding down the hill on a sled, as Kendappa had threatened to do. It would surely scandalize the entire court, which in itself would be quite amusing and worth any bumps and bruises he might acquire.

He smiled wistfully as he apported his greatcoat and gloves to him, and then drew the spell-runes for a teleportation spell.

Yes, he decided, he might as well enjoy the present. It was all he really had.

**~ end ~**

_December 2010 - June, 2012_


End file.
